


Liberty Bonds

by ExpatGirl



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 20th Century, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Hunters, Alternate Universe - World War I, Angels, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Hunter Dean Winchester, Hunter Sam Winchester, M/M, Minor Character Death, Priest Sam Winchester, Sexual Content, Trench Warfare
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2019-06-17 19:41:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 49,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15468615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExpatGirl/pseuds/ExpatGirl
Summary: Dean, Sam, and Castiel struggle with War, Free Will, and Love on the Western Front.





	1. Au Revoir, but Not Good-Bye

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story in three parts. Part One is set in 1917, Part Two in 1918, and Part Three in 1919. Part One is complete. Part Two is being written, and Part Three is fully planned. (Assuming the plan behaves!)

 

> _Tossed on the glittering air they soar and skim,_  
>  _Whose voices make the emptiness of light_  
>  _A windy palace. Quavering from the brim_  
>  _Of dawn, and bold with song at edge of night,_  
>  _They clutch their leafy pinnacles and sing_  
>  _Scornful of man, and from his toils aloof_  
>  _Whose heart's a haunted woodland whispering;_  
>  _Whose thoughts return on tempest-baffled wing;_  
>  _Who hears the cry of God in everything,_  
>  _And storms the gate of nothingness for proof._
> 
> -Siegfried Sassoon, **Thrushes**

* * *

 

_**Part One:** **1917** _

 

For the detecting of witches, Heinrich von Schultheiss devised a series of seventy-seven questions. Most of them centered around food and drink, which Dean had always found hilarious. Matthew Hopkins narrowed it down to twenty, but added some flourishes with the kind of artistry only a dyed-in-the-wool sadist could imagine: needles, mostly, but sometimes a blunt knife, or pliers, or a strategically placed coal, among other things. (Dean always thought, privately, that Hopkins must’ve had dealings with demons himself to learn a few of those tricks. He should know.)

Either way, they were both hacks. Hopkins at least, had some familiarity with the Clavicula Salomonis, but mostly he just seemed to get off on torturing women.

The best damn witchfinder in the history of the Western world was a thirteenth century shepherdess from Northumbria named Tiffany.  

No one, outside of the hunting world, had ever heard of Theophania ‘Tiffany’ de Langley. She had no children, was illiterate, and died at twenty seven of something called the sweating sickness—which, it was generally agreed, was probably the result of a hex bag.

Two months before her death, though—perhaps sensing her time was almost up—she’d paid a scribe to write down her methods, and any hunter worth their salt had a copy of her work somewhere.  Tiffany de Langley could find a witch in twelve questions or less. Her crook was inscribed with elaborate runes that still hadn’t been fully deciphered. Bobby kept a portrait of her above his fireplace.

Dean thought of Tiffany as he stared down at his draft card. He’d never had much sympathy for witches, but he was pretty close to having some right now as he held pen to paper. Twelve questions. That was enough to determine the outcome of a man’s life.

Nobody who knew Dean would ever dare to call him a coward, but for a moment he felt something like cowardice. He always thought he’d go out on a hunt; bitten through by a werewolf’s jaws, maybe, or a wendigo. Maybe a demon, the same way Dad went. And Mom.

Anyway, not on the end of some farm boy’s bayonet, stuck like a hog, not of fucking _trench foot_ , or…  


“Say, young man, are you going to sign that card or are you going to stand there eyeballing it all day?”

Dean looked up with a start at the sour-faced man sitting in front of the the flag. “Sorry, sir,” he said, signing the card hastily before handing it over. He gave the man his most charming grin, but the man remained unsmiling, and Dean was reminded vaguely of Dad at the end of a bad hunt. He cleared his throat and watched the man carefully wrote out the the details in his ledger before handing the card back. “You have a nice day, sir,” he said, nodding, but got nothing but a grunt in response.

“Pleasant guy,” he said, under his breath, stuffing his draft card in his pocket, not even caring if the ink was fully dry.

Dean looked over his shoulder on his way out the door, at the group behind him. All men around his age, but none of whom he knew.  But then, that wasn’t surprising. He spent very little time in town, at least during daylight hours.

They all had serious eyes and freshly-scrubbed faces under the brims of their hats, and he stuck his hands in his pockets, self-conscious of the dirt under his nails, the scuff of his boot-tips.

Dean stepped out into the heavy June air. He lifted his hat to wipe away the sweat that threatened to run into his eyes. Something cold and sour settled in him, despite the heat, and the faint scent of honeysuckle on the breeze.

He wasn’t...afraid. _Afraid_ wasn’t the word he was looking for. He’d been a soldier before he’d left boyhood, and all this meant was that he might have to be a different kind of soldier. So he might have to trade the salt rounds for mortar rounds, so what? God, if his Dad could see him now, fretting like a schoolboy over the thought of getting shot at…

 _War is hell._ Dean had heard that phrase more than once, mostly by civilians and dumbasses who didn’t know what they were talking about. But he’d squared up against his fair share of Hell in his time, and always come out swinging. Of course, he’d usually had Dad, or Sammy, or both, with him when he did. Except for the one time he he hadn't. And now, he—

“Pull yourself together, Winchester,” he muttered to himself, hoping none of the passers-by would hear. His number might not even get drawn, he reminded himself. There were thousands of men in this state. Hundreds of thousands in the whole country and the territories. He was just one set of numbers among many.

He shook himself before the idea could take hold too tightly.

Belatedly, he realized that he was scratching at the inside of his forearm, where the stitches were just about ready to come out. Ghouls could could be real vicious bastards when they knew they were likely to lose their heads. Bitey. He yanked at the cuff of his sleeve.

He had to get back to Bobby’s; yesterday some rich gold brick with a cushy job at Sandover brought in a C Class that needed fixing. He  promised fifteen dollars in cash if Dean could get it back on the road by Friday. Dean would give Bobby three dollars of it, of course, and wire another two to Sam. Then there was Ben’s college fund—he’d have to tell Lisa about that, someday—which was another dollar.

Still, that left (he tapped the count against his thigh as he walked) nine dollars for his own use. He could practically feel it sitting his pocket right now. Maybe he’d hit Donnie’s bar on Friday night to celebrate.

At the minute, he barely had a wooden nickel to his name. But then, Donnie didn’t ever seem to care if Dean was a little short. Dean was—well, not a regular, but someone whose face who Donnie knew, and who paid his tab when he could. With money, when he had it; with other things, when he didn’t. He slowed. He couldn’t have owed more than a buck fifty. Two, tops. He had fifty cents on him, which might get him something.

He dug his watch out of his pocket, ran his thumb over the ornate _JW_ engraved on the top, and flipped it open. The sun overhead glinted bright on the watch face, and he had to squint to see it.  On the inside of the lid was a much simpler engraving of a pentagram in a ring of flame, done in his father’s own hand.

Registration hadn’t taken as long as he thought it would. It was only half-past noon. And Donnie did sometimes serve food, when he felt like it—which he usually did, if Dean asked nicely. Donnie had returned from Veracruz with a shrapnel scar on his left shoulder and a recipe for something he called tacos. And sometimes, if he asked very nicely, he got those.

He took a sharp left, giving a nod and a wink to the dark-haired girl trying to catch his eye as she passed by. She dipped her head, blushing, at that, but Dean saw her gaze back at him as she walked away. For an instant, he debated creating an errand that would take him in her direction. But the thought of whiskey and easy company was too tempting, and so he continued on.  


It was nearly one o'clock by the time Dean arrived at Donnie's. There were already three men playing pool, wreathed in cigarette smoke, with their jackets hanging limply over bar stools. He summed them up with a quick, practiced eye as he hung his hat by the door. The shoes and spats on the shortest one were definitely new and expensive; the curl of the tallest one's mustache irritated him for some reason. But it was the middle one, the one leaning on his pool cue and making howling noises for no apparent reason, that made Dean frown the most.

Oh well. They were young and boisterous and probably in Sioux Falls for registration, and so Dean tried to keep his displeasure at having to share Donnie's attention—he was an excellent barman, after all—to a minimum.

“Dean. Always good to see you here,” Donnie said, sounding like he meant it. Dean grinned again, and Donnie was clearly more susceptible to it than the man at the registration table was, because he stopped wiping down the bar top and leaned forward on his elbows.

“Good to be seen.” It was only marginally cooler in here than outside in the street, and Donnie, Dean noted, had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. “Hot out there,” Dean said, tugging at his collar, feeling a trickle of sweat work its way down the back of his neck.

“I guess you’ll want a drink, then,” Donnie said, setting a rocks glass down on the bar, “if you’re thirsty.”

“I, uh,” Dean said, hearing the sharp clack of the rack breaking at the pool table. “Just a quick one. Don't suppose you're doing any of your famous, uh, what did you call them again? Taquitos?”

“I would, but then our friends over there might want some.” Dean wanted to point out that it was no bad thing to have paying customers, even obnoxious ones, but he got the sense that Donnie had just about had his fill of these three.

Dean smiled easily. “Oh well. Nothing ventured nothing gained. You'll have to show me how to make them sometime.” A peal of laughter rang out, setting Dean's teeth on edge, turning his smile into a gritting of teeth. _Damn_ , those boys were grating on him. Donnie clearly saw the irritation on his face. He glanced over Dean's shoulder and gave him a rueful smile.

“They came in for registration.”

“I figured. College boys?”

“Probably.” Donnie poured out a generous measure of whiskey and slid it across.

“I don't have much money on me,” Dean said, running his thumbnail against the side of the glass. “Not 'til Friday, at least.” Donnie raised his eyebrows at that, but said nothing. “But, you know, if you've got any, uh, repairs or...anything you need, I've got a couple spare hours.”

“Hm,” Donnie said. “One or two things. But...” He nodded in the direction of the pool players, who were now engaged in a very loud round of backslapping. “I've gotta keep an eye on my customers. Don't worry about it Dean, I know you're good for it.”

“They been behaving themselves?”

Donnie shrugged and dropped his eyes. He resumed cleaning. “Well, they called this place a two-bit dive.”

“Seriously?” Dean asked. “This place is classy. You got indoor plumbing years before anyone else!”

Donnie didn’t look up, but Dean could see his smile reflected in the polished wood.

“Yeah, well,” Donnie said. He leaned forward into Dean’s space until Dean could smell the juniper of his aftershave. “They've only bought one rye the whole time they've been here.”

“How long _have_ they been here?” Dean asked, turning in their direction. He realized belatedly that he hadn't been discreet about it, but they were too occupied with their game—or rather, talking, loudly, about their game—to notice. The tallest of the three began poking one of the others in the shoulder with the butt of his pool cue.

Donnie sighed. “Two hours.”

“They've been here since you opened and they only bought one drink? Why ain’t you kicked them out yet?”

Donnie shrugged, and turned to polish the smoked glass behind him. “Tuesdays are slow.” His reflection surveyed Dean, and he lowered his voice as he continue. “Just before you got here, they said I was watering the drinks.”

_“What?”_

“Mm-hm. Then they started quoting Bible passages at me.”

“They—oh, no. I don't think so.”

At the sound of his voice Donnie turned, confused.

“Watch this,” Dean whispered. He reached for his tie, intending to loosen it, before realizing that he'd sent it to Sam. Instead, he undid the top button of his collar, then ran his hands through his hair, disheveling it. He stood, then stopped suddenly, sitting back down. “Uh.”

“What?” Donnie asked. The irritation lifted a fraction from his face as he watched Dean.

“Don't suppose you could spot me two bucks.”

“Spot y—” But he was already reaching into the pocket of his apron.

Dean smiled slyly, winking at him, as Donnie slid a bill and some change across the bar with the flat of his palm. “It will be worth it, I swear.”

Donnie looked at him curiously. “I'm sure it will.”

Dean rolled his shoulders and, as he turned away from the bar, let his smile go a little crooked, like holding it straight was too much effort. Then, in a sudden flash of inspiration, he poured the dregs of his drink onto his open palm, and rubbed it against his neck like cologne. Donnie raised an eyebrow at him, but said nothing.

Now he was ready.

He wandered over to the pool table. He kept his steps steady, for the most part. Most people played drunk by playing _drunk_. But Dean—Dean knew better. Drunk people tried to act sober. They tried to act like they had it all under control, that they weren't halfway down on their knees already.

Dean was well-acquainted enough with the bottom of a bottle to know exactly how that felt. Half the time, he didn't even need whiskey to feel that way.

“Howdy fellas,” he said, still smiling.

They fell silent as he approached.

“Do you want something?” the tall one asked.

“I dunno. Thought maybe...a game?” He leaned against the edge of the table, a fraction too far, before righting himself. “Seeing as there's—” he pointed blurrily and smiled again. “Three of you.”

“Are you drunk, sir?”

“Me?” Dean waved off the suggestion with a gesture designed to rock him back on his heels. “Nah! Sober as a Quaker.” He crossed his arms. “You want to play some eight ball, or not?”

He could see the calculating light in their eyes ignite as they regarded him, six little sparks of malicious glee. They turned to each other and spoke in hushed, hurried voices. Someone uttered the phrase “Be not among drunkards...” before being summarily hushed.

“Maybe,” another said, in a thief's voice, as though whiskey might stop up a man's ears as well as his senses, “but perhaps our friend here could use a Scripture lesson. What do you think, Edward?”

Dean frowned at that, and was still frowning when they turned to consider him.

“Sir,” the tallest of the three—Edward, apparently—said, “I believe I'll accept your challenge.” He crushed his cigarette into the nearest ashtray, as if to emphasize his point.

“Swell. Let's make the first bet a dollar, huh? Start out nice and easy while we get acquainted.” He winked for the third time today, and, just as he expected, this one didn't go over as well as the first two had. Tall clenched his jaw, and in the back, Shoes and Mustache exchanged confused looks.

Perfect.

Dean had, for the past two years, been cultivating a veneer of respectability and discretion that served him well. He kept his passions in check, so much as he could; and as far as most of Sioux Falls was concerned, he was Bobby’s bachelor nephew, who kept himself to himself and rarely ventured into town, but made sure Bobby stayed out of the drunk tank, for the most part. If work sometimes took him away for long periods of time, or if he sometimes came back favoring a leg or a shoulder, well—everyone knew working on railways was tough.

It was a compromise he'd reached with Lisa, back when it seemed like she might marry him. Back when he thought he might ask.

He'd cleaved himself in two, when he returned from where'd he'd gone, three long years ago. There was waking-world self, the kind of man who waved to the neighbors, and who frowned into his newspaper over toast and coffee; who put the milk bottles out every morning, and shared an amiable, quiet drink with work friends most evenings. A man who took care of his brother’s widow, and treated her son like his own. A man with a rakish past, they thought—a past of drinking in disreputable pubs and falling into bed with disreputable women—but a salvageable future.

And then there was his other self, something...else. The self that never showed its true face beyond the orbit of the bedroom, and never in broad day. Then he was the kind of man who was not a man, exactly, but an array of broken bits that passed for one; someone who field stripped weapons in the basement, and sometimes slept there, too, gripping a bottle, until Ben had to sneak in and cover him with a blanket. Lisa never could quite meet his eye after those nights, but she was careful never to ask too much about what it is that set him shaking like a spooked dog.

But then, Lisa wasn't most people. She swept salt into the floorboards and sewed demon traps into the lining of her quilts and petticoats. She learned to load a gun with silver bullets, and her hands never trembled. Only the whiteness of her knuckles around the grip, and the tight line of her mouth, betrayed her anxiety.

She probably would've married him, too, if he'd asked. At least, in the beginning she probably would have. But Dean could never quite get the scent of sulfur and blood out of his nose; and one short hunt turned into ten, into twenty, into a stand-off with a djinn pack in the middle of goddamn Cicero, Indiana that left two people dead and Sam with a broken arm.

He thought of Lisa—of Ben, of what he could have had, if he'd been the kind of man who was capable of having things—as he leaned over the pool table to take his shot. Last time she wrote, her letter was full of short, cool, cordial sentences. He could feel her growing more distant with each line. She'd signed it 'Your affectionate sister-in-law'.

She was being courted by a doctor now, and she hoped to be married next May. Probably in the little white chapel near the creek. It'd be pretty in the Spring, at least. Maybe she’d even invite him.

He took his first shot. It was, as planned, completely lousy. (Though, Dean admitted, perhaps a little lousier than he'd intended, being distracted and all.) A loud, raucous whoop went up around the table.

He took a deep breath. He couldn't afford to actually get rattled, not with someone else's money on the line. He made sure he was smiling when he looked at them again, still hazy, before drawing his brows together like he'd only just realized what happened. “Oops.” He took an unsteady step backward, for good measure.

“Maybe not so lucky, huh, pretty boy?” Edward asked, smirking, as he lined up his shot. Dean noted the sharp disappearance of any formality in his words. It bugged him.

“If it wasn't for bad luck I'd have no luck at all,” Dean said, leaning heavily against the side of the table.

The first dollar came and went, and the second, this one split into quarters that Dean laid down on the green felt, like he was praying for luck from a god that only dealt in disasters. Dean did his best not to glance back to see the expression Donnie was probably leveling in his direction. The banter turned barbed, and he continued to fumble his way through it, growing more flustered as the game wore on.

They let him go first every time, and every time, he made sure to commit an easy mistake. He pinched the bridge of his nose to hide his growing anticipation as the last quarter disappeared, and the three around the table jeered.

“Well, shoot,” he said, throwing the cue down on the table in a show of disgust.

“Game's over,” Edward said, slapping one of his friends on the back. Dean noted with distaste the sweat stains that had bloomed under his armpits. “Perhaps you'll reconsider your ways,” he continued, and tossed his head haughtily, “and the company you keep.”

“Hmm,” Dean said. He channeled his sudden desire to punch something into picking his cue back up. “You seem like a smart group of guys, whereas me? Well. I don't have the brains God gave a squirrel.”

They laughed at that, and Dean continued to smile his dullard's smile. “But what I do got? Is stubbornness. Lots of it. And,” he said, taking out his father's watch, “this.” He held it up so that it flashed through the smoky light, like a hypnotist in a travelling show.

“What good's a beat-up old watch?” the mustachioed one scoffed. He was quickly overtaking Eddie as Dean's second least-favorite person in this bar—Dean being the first.

“I'll have you know,” Dean said, unable to hide his anger entirely, “this thing's solid silver. Gold and ivory inlay. Made in Switzerland, which is apparently a real place. Been in my family for generations. This thing's worth twenty bucks. Heck, maybe twenty five.”

“Fella, are you serious?” Mustache asked. “You'd bet a family heirloom on a pool game? You belong in the loony bin, and no mistake.”

For a brief moment, Dean worried that he'd pushed it too far, that they weren't gonna bite, and he'd have to get his hands dirty, break a few chairs, and a few laws.

But it seemed—happily, for Dean—that while this Scripture lesson admonished against mixing with drunks, it didn't include any advice about the love of money. He looked at Dean the way vampires sometimes did, when they had him cornered in some old barn or other, lured by the smell of blood and the promise of an easy meal.

Those hunts were always pretty damned satisfying.

“Alright, Mister. Seems you haven't fully learned your lesson yet, and it would appear that I've been sent here to teach you.”

“'Preciate it,” Dean said, biting his tongue. He laid the watch on the table, letting his fingertips linger on the cover for just a second, like he was saying goodbye.“You got twenty bucks in there?”he asked, pointing at the breast pocket of the waistcoat where his money had disappeared. He waited. When all he got in response was an incredulous laugh, he gestured to the heavy silver chain hanging from Edward's pocket. “What about that? That's gotta be worth at least a couple of bucks.”

Edward's hand hesitated, and then he gripped the watch chain tightly. “This was a gift from my father.”

Dean held up his hands, like it didn't make much difference to him, which sent his cue clattering to the ground. “Hey, friend, so's mine,” he said, as he stooped to retrieve it again. “I get it. You're worried about losing.”

The two behind Edward started to laugh, a goading sound. “Shut up, you two,” he said sharply, cutting them off. He unclipped the watch chain and held the watch up, placing it on top of Dean's. Then he took the money out of his waistcoat and threw it on the table, staring the whole time.

Dean nodded, solemn, and busied himself chalking the cue-tip while Edward racked the table. “Before we start, I got just one question for you, Eddie.”

“Oh? What's that?”

Dean raised his head, clear-eyed and sharp-toothed. “Do you really think I'm pretty?”

That first flicker of realization was always the sweetest. Dean, who, out of necessity, did brutal things, but out of greater necessity, kept cruelty at arm's length, let himself indulge in just one moment of predatory joy.

But he didn't linger. There was money to be had. The crack of the cue ball rang like a gunshot in the suddenly quiet room. As he called his next shot, he considered being charitable.

Then he remembered the tired, irritated expression on Donnie's face, the condescending little curl of Eddie’s lip as he spat the word _sir_ at Dean like it was a joke.

Nah.

“Hey,” he said to Eddie, who had gone the color of whey, “you never know. I might miss.” He smirked.

By the end, Dean was sweating. He undid the second button of his shirt, and wiped his brow with his arm. “Eight ball,” he said, looking over his shoulder at Donnie, who was now sitting on a bar stool, watching him. “In the corner pocket.”

There was a taut second as the cue ball slowed, curving toward the ball in question where it rested, teetering on the edge; and then, at last, a soft click that rose through the smoky air, followed by a resounding thud as the eight ball sank.

“Well,” Dean said, “appears my luck finally turned.”

“You—munz-watcher. You fucking conned me.” Eddie’s grip on the pool cue was tight enough to leave blisters.

“Buddy, you’re mistaken,” Dean said, easy.

“You lied about being drunk to get one over on us!”  
  
“Mm, nope. I told you straight: sober as a Quaker, remember?” He smiled and felt something guttural and warm chasing away the chill that had followed him since he’d signed his draft card. He could never quite resist a little showing off. He reached for his winnings, but a pool cue came down across the back of his hand, pinning it in place. He looked up. Not Eddie. Mustache.

“Hey, now,” he heard Donnie say, over the scraping of a bar stool.

Dean held out his free hand behind him, placating, but never took his eyes from his assailant’s face. “Listen, friend,” Dean said, coiling tight as a cottonmouth. “Trust me when I say that this is not something you want to do.”

He didn’t let up. “Is that so?”  
  
“Seriously. Pal. Let go of my hand and walk away. I'll buy you all a round.”  
  
“You're a swindler who needs to learn a lesson,” said Eddie. “And so does your grifter friend over there.”  
  
Dean didn't bother looking at him, even as the thought of bashing his head in sprang up in Dean’s mind. “Leave Donnie out of this. Now, mister, I admire your commitment to facial hair. It gives you a certain, uh…” He groped for the word. “Gravitas. But if you think I'd hesitate to rip that thing right off your face and shove it down your throat, you're fixing to get a surprise.”  
  
“Listen, you...”  
  
Dean didn't let him finish. “Okay,” he sighed, and kicked him square in the leg, causing his knees to buckle. Before he hit the ground, Dean grabbed the back of his head and pressed it against the rough felt of the pool table. At the same instant, he produced a knife from his boot. “Like I said.” He pressed the tip of the blade to the skin of his opponent's cheek.

There was a rush and a crash as one of the group fled out the doors, upending a table and a spittoon on his way out. Eddie had retreated back against the wall. “I'll call the police,” he cried. The man under Dean's knife said nothing, but was breathing hard.

“And tell them what?” Donnie challenged. “You attacked a customer of mine for winning a round of pool. He _told_ you he wasn't drunk.” He his eyes raked Dean’s face, and Dean knew Donnie could see the feral way his pulse jumped in his throat. But he sounded calm when he said: “Dean, I think these gentlemen have learned enough about sportsmanship today.”

Dean had one more moment—just one—where he thought about driving the knife in and hearing the guy scream. Something in him twinged, a twisting in the gut, a kind of memory-that-wasn't. Then a hit of brimstone and a howl. His arm hurt a little. His heart lurched, and he lowered the knife and dragged the man to his feet.

Eddie blinked, dazed, and watched his friend stumble towards him.

“You need a better pair of attack dogs,” Dean said, counting his money.

“My-” Eddie began, hastily gathering up his hat and coat. His voice wavered. “My father will hear about this!”

“Tell him thanks a lot for the watch,” Dean said, sliding his own back into his pocket.

“You blackguard, I'll—”

Donnie stepped forward. There was no trace of any stiffness or injury in his stance, and his affable, accommodating demeanor had evaporated like a drop of water on a griddle. His expression was hard as stone as he looked at them.

 _Oh_ , Dean thought. _Soldier boy._

“You'll get the hell out of my bar is what you'll do.”

Eddie deflated in the face of the twin thunderheads of Dean and Donnie's anger. He and Mustache made their unsteady way toward the door. There was a burst of daylight, and a fragment of street noise, and then it was quiet. At least, the room was quiet. Dean's ears were filled with roaring.

“I didn't know you carried a knife,” Donnie said, after a minute.

“Always. Feel naked without it.” Dean continued to watch the door, jittery and filled with adrenaline.

“Hmm, well.” Donnie walked back over to the bar. “That'd be no good. You being naked.” He retrieved the door key from under the countertop.

Dean smiled to himself as Donnie walked past him. He felt the time pull at him. But then, he’d be no good with all the excess energy in his system. A competent mechanic needed a steady hand.

“You need to be going?” Donnie asked. He turned the key in the lock.

“Probably, yeah.” Dean said. He busied himself with the retrieval of the pool balls. He always tried to be a good patron. Donnie drew down the curtain and turned on the light.

“Don't let me keep you.”

“Wait,” Dean said, as Donnie brushed past him. Donnie’s back stiffened like Dean had sworn at him. Slowly, he turned around, and Dean saw confusion clouding his face.

Dean held out a pair of crumpled two dollar bills. “Uh. For my tab. I think this should cover it.”

Donnie’s expression cleared. “Almost.”

_“Almost?”_

“Well, you _did_ nearly scalp a man on my brand new pool table.”

Donnie said it lightly, with a smile lingering on his face, but Dean caught the faintest undercurrent of something heavy weighing down his words. He chose to ignore it.

He followed Donnie into the back room, where Donnie slept on nights when he was too tired to walk home. It was spare but tidy. The quilt covering the cot was threadbare, made with military corners. The walls were empty except for one overblown embroidered rose and a calendar turned to the wrong day.

It reminded Dean a little of his own room, above the garage. His walls, though, were almost always papered with parchments and copies of journals, scrawled with sigils and illustrations of monsters; his bookshelves groaned under an array of occult weaponry, and, currently, held a tobacco tin full of phoenix ash.

He tended not to invite people up.

Donnie untied his apron and hung it on the hook by the door. There was no electricity in here, so he lit a hurricane lamp, and then blew out the match. He turned to Dean, then. The reddish gold of the lamp made his features sharp and soft at once, and the smoke wreathed his face before it dissipated, a kind of fleeting halo. Dean felt a sharp, sudden chill that he couldn’t identify, but then Donnie approached him—the way a boxer might, before a match—and pulled him in by the waist for a kiss.

Donnie was a courteous kisser, in a way that had surprised Dean at first. Men tended not to be, with him. He could count them on one hand, the ones whose mouths and bodies had collided with his without intending to bruise. Initially, he’d thought it was the lack of money changing hands that made Donnie conscientious, but no.

Dean had asked why once, when he’d been four bourbons deep, alone in the bar on a midwinter afternoon.  He’d just returned from a brutal hunt for a wendigo that had left him a little short on blood. That, combined with the alcohol, had loosened his tongue.

“Well,” Donnie said, seeming startled. “I, I like you.” He glanced at Dean’s face, then, more pointedly, over Dean’s shoulder.  Dean couldn’t understand why until Anne Marie materialized from somewhere behind him. She placed her hand over his glass, and the turquoise stones in her ring clinked against the rim.

“Seems like you could use some water.” He blinked up at her. Her hair was golden-yellow against the grey light pressing through the windowpane. He knew from experience that it smelled like lily-of-the-valley soap, and that her lips and body yielded far more readily than her personality.

He looked between her and Donnie, who wore a similar expression, then down at his empty shot glass. “Guess so.”

It took him a moment to realize that Donnie was saying his name, here, now, in the spartan little room with the curtain drawn. He snapped back to attention.

“You sure you only had one drink?” Donnie asked. His fingers rested lightly on the back of Dean’s neck.

Dean made himself laugh. “Been working late,” he said, leaning in to find Donnie’s mouth once more.

Donnie withdrew a little, and Dean felt uneasy; but then they kissed again, and kept kissing, until Dean had Donnie against the wall. _The best defense is a good offense,_ Dad used to say—though he was pretty sure that this scenario had never crossed John’s mind when he was handing out that piece of advice.

“Damn,” Donnie said, breaking the kiss and resting his head against the wall. Not even the pomade he used could keep his hair in order after Dean’s onslaught. “You’ve got some pent-up energy.”

“It's, uh, it's been awhile.”

It wasn't strictly true (that shop girl in Albany had been very welcoming) but it had been a long time since he’d been up tight against someone he was probably going to see again.

This _thing_ with Donnie wasn’t a romance, not exactly, but fumbling in the back room of a bar a few times a year was as close as he was going to get. The thought plucked at a memory, like a loose suture. All his memories seemed to be splitting open today, and he didn't know why. He dragged himself back from it and pressed into Donnie with renewed force.

He went to work on the buttons of Donnie's trousers as soon as he felt hands inching up under his shirt. This part was always a bit delicate. He could never remember which scars Donnie had seen before, and which might need explaining. The hand print always required creativity—usually some railway mishap involving kerosene or paraffin—but at least Donnie knew about that one. There were smaller scars across his back and chest, some from hunts and some from fights he’d been too stupid to walk away from, but in the dim light they tended to go unnoticed. And, if he was honest, the scars he wore now were mostly unremarkable. He’d had a lot more, or at least _different_ , scars before the…

His arm twinged again, a shock from wrist to shoulder. _Oh_. The ghoul bite. It was still a constellation of bruises with four stitches running through the middle. The shirt was going to have to stay on this time. He didn't have the brain power to think of an explanation right now, not when there were lips hot against his neck and a hand sliding down the back of his waistband. Donnie had, at some point, shed his shirt, and kicked it out of the way, and was now in his undershirt, tight across his chest and shoulders.

He let Donnie tug his own shirttails out before he took evasive action, slipping his thigh between Donnie’s knees. Judging by the noise he made, Donnie was pleasantly surprised. Dean sidestepped the thought that this was more like the grappling of strangers than he was used to with Donnie, the kind of thing you got in a dark alley or a lonely waystation.

Something was off, and not in that one-drink-too-many way, not in that blow-to-the-head way. Something....else.

But Dean had been in worse scrapes before, and he knew one surefire way to make sure Donnie was distracted enough to not notice. He made quick work of Donnie’s belt, the buckle clanking against his own as it came loose.

“You’re not usually in such a hurry,” Donnie noted, though he seemed happy enough to be divested of his clothing, happy enough to take Dean’s customary position against the wall. Which was good. Dean aimed to make people happy, mostly.

“Pent-up energy, remember?”

“Mm-hm. But…ah!”

He sank down, onto his knees, before Donnie could finish the thought. From here, the moonscape of shrapnel scars on the outside of Donnie’s thigh was visible, even in the dim light. The sight of it always arrested him, and Dean paused in his headlong sprint to caress his thumb across the marks. It was a hand-span wide—he’d been lucky, Donnie said, because the wall next to him had taken the worst of it—and so, Dean put his hand across it, and drew him forward.

He was only half-hard, which irritated Dean for some reason. He took Donnie into his mouth like it was another challenge, building  a steady, unrelenting pressure from his tongue. That solved the problem within two minutes.

Donnie put his hand in Dean’s hair, gentle and warm, in a way that normally made Dean feel like some callow kid with his first sweetheart. But this time he ignored it. He kept up the pace, defiant, and felt a surge of triumph as Donnie let out a gasp and a groan. Donnie let go of his hair. A second later, Dean heard the _slap_ of palms against the wall, and Donnie came, listing to one side as his bad leg trembled. Only then did Dean’s feelings of tenderness return, holding Donnie steady as he regained his bearings.

The room was silent, save for the sounds of their breathing and the sharp ticking of another man’s watch in his pocket.

“Thanks,” Donnie said, like always, and Dean laughed and told him not to worry about it, like always.

Dean wiped his mouth with his handkerchief and stood, giving Donnie another kiss, but realized, to his horror, that the erection he’d had walking into this room was completely gone. This hadn’t happened since—well, since that time with Lisa when—

“Dean, do you want me to…” Donnie’s hand pressed experimentally between Dean’s legs.

“It’s fine.” Dean stepped away, abrupt. “It’s not. Uh.” He coughed.  His teeth were on edge, and he made himself relax his jaw. “Sorry.”

“Sorry?” Donnie looked at him steadily, the way he might look at a woman one gin away from crying. The blush was still high on his neck, but it was fading. “For what?”

“For, uh, you know. Just.” He looked down, tucking his shirt back in with too much care.

Donnie squeezed his shoulder. “Don’t be. I’ve had a fantastic afternoon.”

“Good. That's good.” He made himself appear at ease. “Rain check?”

There was a pause, one that only increased Dean’s sense of chagrin. “Any time,” Donnie said at last, as he refastened his belt. “Now I'm the one running up a tab, huh?”

Dean felt a little better for the joke, and laughed. “Looks that way.”

Donnie smoothed down the front of his apron. “You, uh, want me make you something to eat?”

Dean’s appetite had been keen to the point of pain an hour ago, but now food seemed more trouble than he had time for. Maybe he was getting sick. God, he hoped it wasn’t the flu. “No,” he said, with a rueful shrug, "I really need to get back to work."

Donnie nodded and pulled the curtain open, letting in the world. “Well, I’ll take a rain check on that, too. That’s two I owe you.”

“Yeah,” Dean said. He took the opportunity, while Donnie’s back was turned, to stretch his hand up and feel along the lintel of the doorway for the familiar lines of the Devil’s trap he’d carved there, over a year ago. The stitch from the ghoul bite pulled, and the phantom pain from the hand print on his shoulder flared in sympathy. He hated when that happened. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

Then Donnie turned back to face him, and  a kind of hush settled over them, tentative, like after the first time they’d had their hands down each other’s pants and they weren’t quite sure of the etiquette. Dean didn’t know why. He’d delivered a pretty solid service, all things considered, and Donnie didn’t seem angry about the let-down in the other department. So why was Donnie looking at him the way Sam sometimes did when Dean made one too many jokes at his own expense?

“Dean, listen,” Donnie began, and _oh shit_ , that was exactly how Sam started most of the conversations Dean didn’t feel like having.

“Uh,” Dean said, backing against the door.

“I…I don’t know if I ever told you why I enlisted.”

Dean felt behind him for the doorknob. “It’s...never come up.”

“Mm. I told myself it was because I wanted to see the world, but really, it….it  was that or starve.”

Dean let his hand drop. “Oh.”

“But,” Donnie continued, not sounding the least bit sorry for himself, “it was still a choice, more or less, and I made it myself.”

“I…” But Dean didn’t know how to finish the thought.

Donnie hesitated, then visibly steeled himself before speaking again. “I don’t agree, you know, with the Act. I think what Goldman said was right. She was right. I think it’s...it’s wrong to _require_ men to do this. To put their names in a _hat_ to see who lives and who doesn’t? It's…why, it's so wrong I don't have words for it.” He spoke quickly, in a low voice, despite the fact that they were alone. Men had been jailed for far less.

“Wrong or right,” Dean said, “it’s happening.” His face had gone hot, like he’d peered into the firebox of a full-pelt steam train, like his skin was going to peel right off, like he was back there, on…

He inhaled sharply. He looked at his feet, mostly because he didn't want to look at Donnie, but also because he seemed to be losing feeling in everything that wasn't directly behind his ribs. He'd been fighting his whole life, a permanent soldier in a hidden war. Choice had never entered the equation. For Sam, maybe, but for him? The only choice he'd ever had was whether to roll over or keep swinging.

“Dean? I’m...I’m sorry, I…”

Dean shook his head, but he didn’t have another smile in him. Instead, he contemplated Donnie, serious and intent. They so seldom looked at each other this way that Donnie blinked and fell silent.  Dean realized, as he took him in—the slight tilt in his posture from his war wound, the scrupulously clean apron, the sunlight through his light brown hair, the quiet, softly concerned eyes—that sometimes you only saw people plainly when you were taking your leave, with the piercing clarity of goodbye.

Probably he would see Donnie again. Donnie was as close as he’d had to a sweetheart, to a _friend_ , in years. But he knew then, as certain as he knew that angels weren’t real, and that demons were, he’d never see Donnie like _this_ ever again.

“It's okay, Donnie,” Dean said, feeling an eerie calm settle over him. “You're not wrong. About…uh, about any of it. And I...I wish to God none of it was happening.” He knew better than to wish to Hell. He might just get what he asked for.

He pulled Donnie in for one, last, kiss. He didn’t pull away until he was sure Donnie was breathless and dizzy. He’d had a lot of practice perfecting that one.

“Hey,” he said, with this most winning, at-ease smile. “You never know. There are thousands of poor dumb saps in this state.” He put his hands into his pockets for extra effect, and felt the edge of the draft card against this thumb. “My number probably won’t even get called.”

“Yeah,” Donnie said, opening the door, with his face away from Dean. “I bet you’re right.”

On the street, they parted like gentlemen—a handshake and a smile. Donnie promised to pass on Dean’s regards to Anne Marie when she returned from her mother’s house in Minnetonka.

“She’ll pray for you, I’m sure,” Donnie said.

“Alright,” Dean said, as he buttoned his coat. “If it helps her, she can pray as much as she likes.” He turned away, then looked back one more time. “Take care of yourself, Donnie.”

“You too, Dean.”


	2. Like a Rock Cast in the Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _In which Dean eats some peach cobbler, writes a letter, and has a dream, and nothing is quite as it seems._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can see the draft categories for the Selective Service Act [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_Service_Act_of_1917#Draft_categories). Sam falls under category V, since he's student clergy. 
> 
> And [here's](https://image.pbs.org/webobjects/pbs/stories-service/971658/image_122.jpg.resize.800x450.jpg) how they drew the numbers. (You may, rightly, be getting some Hunger Games vibes.)

Bobby didn't holler at him when he finally made it home, just leaned back in his chair so he could see Dean through the doorway of the study.

“There's still some cornbread in the skillet if you're hungry.”

“Starving,” Dean said, wiping his feet on the mat and making a beeline for the kitchen. He’d bought some licorice at the general store on the walk home, but beyond that, he’d had nothing since sun-up.

Bobby's house was a formerly grand affair. His mother’s family had been in Sioux Falls since before it was called Sioux Falls, and some great uncle or other had started building this place not long after he moved here.

Bobby never talked about his father, except to say that he hated the son of a bitch and that the feeling was mutual. He’d died in a hunting accident when Bobby was eleven, and it was then that Bobby and his ma moved into the house. He didn’t talk much about her, either, but he did keep her silhouette portrait in the parlor. From what Dean could tell she was a strict, devoutly religious woman, though the only sign of it he ever saw in Bobby was his uncanny ability to remember Bible verses. (Though, Dean admitted, that may have just been an occupational knowledge.)

Bobby met Karen at twenty-four, when he set out for Japan in the Merchant Navy, and he married her at twenty-five, when he returned. For her, he’d made the place the very picture of modernity: got rid of the outhouse, installed lights and running water. He’d even built her a bed, by hand. He’d taken an ax to it after her death, and now he slept in a hammock, but he kept her wedding band on his watch chain.

After Karen died, Bobby renovated the place for a second time. The doorknobs were all solid iron with silver inlay; he’d ripped up the porch and burned in a Devil’s trap, plank by plank, before re-laying the boards. The storm cellar was clad in iron and had shackles hanging from its ceiling.

According to the last census, Bobby was a salvager and mechanic by trade. According to the town, he was a professional drunk. To the hunters between the Sierra Madre and the Great Plains, though, he was the Farmer’s Almanac of Monster-Killing, the Man Who Knew Things. And if he didn’t know something, he knew the person who did.

Hunting was, in some respects, the most solitary profession imaginable—and in others, one of the most connected. Dean had grown up knowing the first part, intimately and viscerally; it wasn’t until Dad had cut him loose, when Dean stopped being directly under his command, that Bobby had begun showing him the second.

After things ended with Lisa, Dean came limping back to Sioux Falls and spent half a year with Bobby at his elbow and Sam underfoot. He’d yelled a lot and been yelled at a lot, and most days he missed it dearly.

But Dean didn’t want to think about those things right now; not when there was food to be had. He stuffed an entire piece of cornbread, unbuttered, into his mouth, and devoured it within seconds. He was well on his way to finishing the second when Bobby called out from his study: “Slow down, boy, no one’s gonna take it from you.”

“Sorry, Bobby,” Dean said, around a giant bite of cornbread. This lead, predictably, to a coughing fit. Dean leaned heavily against the side of the sink once it had passed, hitting his chest and trying to catch his breath.

There was a pause, then a sigh from the other room. “Get you a drink before you choke.”

Dean blinked away tears. “Yes, sir.” He unlatched the door of the icebox, and let out a relieved noise as the blast of chilled air hit his skin. To his surprise, there was half a bottle of lemonade lying on the top shelf, and below that, a dozen eggs with cream-colored shells.

“Has, uh, has Jody been by?” Dean asked, as he poured himself a glass. He’d never dare call her anything but Ms. Mills outside of this house. She’d retired from the Sheriff's Department years ago to open up her boarding school, but Dean had seen firsthand what she could do with a shotgun. And, as she sometimes pointed out, she was still entitled to make arrests.  But he’d never dare call her anything but Jody behind closed doors, because then she’d deploy what she called her ‘mothering voice’, against which both Dean and Sam were entirely powerless.

There was another pause, and Dean knew Bobby well enough to know from the sound of it that he was probably blushing. Well, as close to blushing as Bobby ever got.

“Yep.”

Dean laughed and covered the rest of the cornbread with a clean dishcloth. It’d make a pretty good stuffing for supper tomorrow. “Good lemonade.”  He made sure to take his time and savor it, because who knew when he’d get it again? The summer was passing so quickly.

“Yep.”

“Wait,” Dean said, under his breath, and walked quickly to the airing cupboard. If Jody had been here, that meant…

“Boy, that peach cobbler is for tonight and if you so much as touch a crumb of it, you’re on 5 am starts for the next week.”

Dean let go of the handle and backed up three steps. “I wasn’t!”

“Mm hm.”

He heard the heavy sound of Bobby’s chair moving, and then the heavier rhythm of Bobby’s footsteps on the floorboards. It sounded like his knee was playing up again. Probably there was a storm coming tonight.

Bobby appeared in the doorway of the kitchen and leaned against it. “She sends her regards,” he said. “She reckons she’ll be around this way some time next week. Got a new girl heading her way.”

“That so?”

“Missouri’s granddaughter.”

“Mis... _Moseley?"_

“That’s the one.”

“I didn’t know she had any family.”

Bobby’s lips formed a harsh, hard line. “No one did. Not even your daddy.” He held up a letter, written with an elegant hand on cheap paper. “Nasty business.”

“She alright?” Dean asked, feeling the day’s troubles bunch up and fall away in an instant. “You need me to make a trip to Kansas?”

He shook his head, and actually let out a laugh. “She said you’d say that,” he said, looking at the letter, “and she says _don’t_.” He let out a worried sound. “Says here her son’s gonna get drafted. And that there’s something stalking psychics that Patience—that’s her granddaughter—isn’t strong enough to fend off on her own.”

  
“Something _stalking_ psychics? Bobby, I should...”

“No, idjit, she says she’s got it handled. And I believe her.  But she can’t look after the girl and take this thing out at the same time. She’s counting on us to keep the kid safe.” He folded the letter back up. “But, well...between you and me, I’m thinking of paying her a visit anyway. Just a social one, mind.”

Dean relaxed a fraction. “Of course. Just a social call. When’s this girl coming?”

“First numbers get called next month,” Bobby said, for the first time looking uncomfortable. “So around then, I’d guess.”

“Yeah, that...” He stopped. Slowly he put his hand into his pocket and drew out the card. He’d nearly forgotten about it. “Did she, um.” He cleared his throat.

“No,” Bobby said quickly. Too quickly.

“Bobby.”

He sighed again, closing eyes. “All she said was, _tell Dean “you’ll end up where you need to be_.” He opened his eyes again. “She also said...I should let you have some of that cobbler.”

“Right,” Dean said, and his throat had gone dry. “Maybe I’ll wait ‘til after supper.”

Bobby’s voice went all concerned and reproachful, which just made it worse. “Now, Dean...”

“Nah, I got a car out there with fifteen bucks riding on it.” He turned to go, then remembered his encounter earlier that day. “Oh, speaking of...” He dug out three dollar bills and pressed them into Bobby’s hand. “Room and board,” he said, smiling broadly, and almost meaning it.

It was an old joke between them. Bobby had long since stopped hiding the money back in Dean’s toolbox. Instead he used it to pay Kaia, one of Jody's girls who came and did their laundry each Friday afternoon. She’d said, on one of the rare occasions when she spoke, that she was saving up her money to become a nurse. After that, Bobby had given her a raise, and won himself an even rarer smile. Dean never did find out what her power was, and he was too afraid to ask. She always  looked at him like she was ready to fight him if he so much as got near her.

“Where’d you get this?” Bobby asked, looking at the money suspiciously.

“Earned it,” Dean said, as he walked out the door. “The old-fashioned way.”

“Now, wait a minute.”

“Not _that_ old-fashioned way!” Dean yelled, letting the screen door close behind him. _That,_ he thought, _I did for free._

 

* * *

 

 

Getting the C Class roadworthy again took the rest of the afternoon, but by the time Bobby rang the dinner bell, she was purring like a kitten, and Dean was pretty confident he had his fifteen dollars in the bank.  It felt good to get his hands dirty, to puzzle out the machinery and coax it to life again. He found himself humming an old tune of his dad's as he walked back to the house, feeling unexpectedly light-hearted.

Bobby was blessedly quiet during their meal, though Dean knew that the conversation hanging over them would burst open sooner or later. Still, he had worked himself into a satisfied state of tiredness, and so he had no problem serving himself a generous slice of peach cobbler.

“A _slice_? Dean, that’s almost half the damned thing.”

“And boy, is it good.” He swallowed another mouthful, letting the perfumed sweetness of it take over his senses for a moment. Damn, he hoped those two got their acts together and started courting like normal people one day soon. He scraped some stray filling from his plate.

He sat back with a contented sigh when it was all gone. “Give Jody my compliments the next time she comes by here. And make sure you give her your own, too.” And by God, Bobby blushed again.

Deciding his work here was done, he stood and gathered up the dishes.

“Here,” Bobby said, as Dean filled the sink with water. “Before you do that, sit down and let me have a look at that arm of yours.”

Dean turned off the tap and took his shirt off without a word as Bobby got the medicine kit from the other room. He pulled out a chair and sat on it, backwards, laying his uninjured arm across the top and resting his chin there. He held out his ghoul-bitten arm, palm up, for Bobby to inspect.

“Itchy?” Bobby asked. His hands were mostly just a collection of calluses by now, but his touch, as ever, was patient and light. He was far gentler than Dean and Sam ever were with each other.  But then he’d always been like this; it was only natural that he treated them the same when skinned knees and splinters turned into wendigo gouges and djinn bites.

Dean made a disgruntled noise. “Very.”

“I reckon they can come out now.” He stood and set the kettle on the stove. “Go get me that bottle of 80 proof.”

Dean winced in anticipation, but did as he was told. His steps may have dragged a little as he made his way back to the kitchen, because by the time he returned, Bobby already had the tweezers and scissors sitting in a bowl of boiling water. Dean set the bottle of liquor down on the table with a _thunk_ , then thought the better of it, and picking it up again to take a long swig. He grimaced as it lit a line of fire down this throat.

“Aw, buck up, boy, it ain’t that bad.” Bobby  poured some alcohol onto a clean dishrag, then wiped down the tweezers and scissors, and looked at Dean expectantly.

“I’m bucked, I’m completely bucked,” Dean said, a touch mulishly, but offered up his arm again. Bobby pressed the damp cloth against the stitches. Dean drew in a harsh breath through his teeth, but he held still.

The first stitch came out, no trouble, then the second and the third. But the fourth. The fourth seemed unwilling to let go as easily as the others had. Bobby made an irritated series of noises and picked up the scissors again. He set the scissors to the suture and then—

And then there came a billow of sulfur, and Bobby’s face twisted, became a jackal-jawed, skinless beast with black eyes and a sing-song voice. The tweezers became pincers, with the name of every one of Dean’s sins etched into them, all the better to dig into his bones, and….

“Dean, you okay there?” For the second time today, Dean felt hands on his face, and when he blinked, he was back in Bobby’s kitchen, with the tap dripping and the smell of supper still lingering on the air. “You look like you, uh, like you checked out there for a moment, son. You’re not goin’ to eat the floor, are you?”

Dean shook his head, but didn’t trust his vocal cords. He looked down at his arm. Still there. All four stitches were out, a neat perforated line, with the pale curve of the ghoul’s fangs barely visible. “Fine,” he managed at last. He tried to ignore the fact that his hands were shaking.

“The hell you are.” Bobby said, frowning. He covered his handiwork with strips of clean gauze and sat back, staring at Dean’s face. “You had a...vision again. Didn’t you?”

Dean looked away. “Don’t matter.”

“It _don’t matter?_ Damn it, Dean.” Bobby pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s been a year since your last one, and now it’s happening again?”

“I’ll cope,” Dean said, crossing his arms in front of his chest. He realized his hand had drifted to the mark on his shoulder, and he quickly let go.

Bobby snorted, exasperated. “That so? Bad enough if it happens after a hunt, but at least I can keep an eye on you. What happens if you're up your knees in mud in the middle of goddamned France?”

Dean stood abruptly, and grabbed his shirt from the table. “What do you want me to do, Bobby? Go back to and say 'actually, fellas, you mind if I give the war a pass? I keep having _demon visions_.’ I might as well just go check myself straight back into the loony bin and stay there.” He missed a few buttons in his haste to get his shirt back on, and pretended not to feel the bite of remorse at the sad, stung look on Bobby’s face.

“You could register as a conscientious objector,” Bobby said, though without any real conviction. He began to put away the supplies, wiping down the tweezers and scissors. “Or you could join Sam.”

Dean turned away, gripping his hair in agitation. He took several deep breaths, and then tried to speak more steadily. “Leave it, Bobby. Like Missouri says. I’ll end up where I’m supposed to be.” He looked over his shoulder, shrugging. “Besides. Maybe they won’t even call my number.”

Bobby didn’t look at him. He closed the medicine kit with a sharp _click_. “Damn right. Maybe they won’t.”

* * *

A storm did come down that night, blown in from the West. From his window seat above the garage, Dean watched it cover the fields, and then the town, in its great dark wings, sending down long licks of lightning. He sat bare-chested and barefoot, grateful for the cool air after many days of heat.

Just after sunset he’d crept back into the house to draw some water for his room, and to do the dishes he’d left standing in the sink. He tried not to feel another pang of guilt when he saw that they’d already been washed and put away in his absence. In the morning, he’d clean the kitchen, he decided, top to bottom.

His letter to Sam remained unwritten, with a crumpled pile of failed attempts filling up the wastepaper basket. Each one started with a joke— _I’m writing to you, Sammy_ , which Dean knew would get the song stuck in Sam’s head for at least a week—and then quickly ran out of steam. There were too many ways to put his thoughts in order, and none of them felt right. All the edges rubbed together, threatening to splinter. Usually Dean found it easier to write to Sam than anyone else, but today all he could find were the wrong words.

In the background the phonograph blared, some disc he’d bought at a ten-cent store in Detroit on a hunt back in December, playing a blues number fiery enough to singe a Hellhound. He didn’t have much taste for marches, though they seemed to be all the rage in the dance halls these days.

He exhaled heavily, leaning his head against the window frame. Sam had already sent him two letters this month, and he was going to get awfully vexed  if Dean didn’t start returning the favor. Then again, maybe he could just walk down to the public telephone on Main Avenue. Calling would probably be faster, right? He wondered if he could convince Bobby to get a phone for the house. He could probably convince him it’d be good for both businesses. Hell, maybe one day he’d have his own.

He realized he was being ridiculous as he thought about somehow getting a phone that would fit in his pocket. How the hell would you even get the wires to the thing?  He laughed at his own stupidity. This day had him on the ropes. He’d finish the damn letter and go to bed, and let coffee sort it out in the morning.

The letter he eventually wrote, as the clock crept toward one, and WC Handy ran ragtime through the night, was pragmatic and short. It was hot, he wrote,  but they’d finally gotten some rain—maybe it had blown in all the way from California. He won a tidy sum at a game of pool. Donnie was doing well. Jody was getting a new girl at her place. He’d registered and…

He pulled his draft card out again and looked at the row of numbers. _Two-five-eight_. He’d been repeating it in ragged time for hours.

 _To be straight with you Sam,_ he wrote, putting the card away again, _it’s not a fun feeling, having this thing in my wallet. I wish they’d just say yes or no._

The sudden burst of late-night honesty was almost a relief, like rain after a long dry spell. He kept writing before he could regret it.

 _You remember what happened, just before I went away?_ He exhaled, and debated crossing it out, debated ripping up the paper and starting over. But he’d gone too far now, and he couldn’t bear trying again. _And the first few months after I got back? It happened again today._

Dean stopped, chewing on the pencil while he thought of what to say next.

_But don’t worry about me. By now I know how to occupy myself and wait for it to pass._

_And besides, I reckon I’m worried about nothing. They probably won’t even call my number._

He looked at the last line and laughed to himself again, but it was drowned out by thunder.

* * *

Dean stood in at the opening of a tunnel, still reeking of TNT and grease. The there was rubble strewn in all directions, blackened from blasts, but there was no sign of the clean-up crew. There was no sign, in fact, of anyone. That couldn’t be right—work this big, there’d be at least a hundred on the ground, maybe more. But was nothing, not even the sound of the wind, in this scorched and soundless place.

He peered into the tunnel, looking for lamps, or daylight, or any sign of how long this particular tunnel was. But all that looked back was tarry blackness. Something cold crawled up his spine. Perhaps they were on the other side? He didn’t want to get grief from the boss for abandoning the job, even if he was having trouble remembering exactly what job they were working on. Cheyenne Mountain, maybe?

 _Shit_. He needed to get to the other side before anyone noticed he was gone. He took one step toward the tunnel and felt the Something Cold spread from his spine into his ribs, wrapping around his heart. He didn’t want to go in there. He stood staring into the dark and began to feel, slowly, that it was staring back at him. He looked around in growing panic, realizing all at once that those weren’t rocks, those were _teeth_.

But he couldn’t get his feet to move in any direction but forward. The more Dean tried to go back, to change course, to do _something_ other than walk further into that maw, the more relentless its pull became. He was soon swallowed whole by the dark, unable to do anything but follow the tracks. The metal was hot under his bare feet—hadn’t he been wearing his boots just a second ago?— growing hotter with each step until it was glowing red and angry, until the pain of it doubled him over. He stopped, wheezing, and leaned against the wall. His mouth flooded with a combination of saliva and bile and blood, dark and bitter, and he spat it out and listened to it hiss as it hit the rails. There was a rumbling sound, down deep, that he couldn’t quite place over the sound of his heartbeat.

There was no light, no light anywhere, and Dean was pretty sure by now that he wasn’t at Cheyenne Mountain. He also knew, with a kind of certainty that existed outside of the physical body, but somehow felt like it would melt the flesh from his bones, what he was going to find if he kept walking.

Again he felt that forward pull, and took a step.

“No,” he said, but the word disappeared.

He gulped down more air. “I said _no.”_ He planted his heels.

The tunnel seemed to vibrate with anger, and Dean shuddered in response. The heat and pressure swelled. The rumble in the distance grew louder with inhale, and….Dean knew that sound. It was  the sound of an oncoming train. It was going to hit him.

He flattened himself against the side as the light roared and burst around him, hot and piercing.  It clipped his shoulder as it passed. He drew in another breath to scream, the molten air searing his lungs. He was going to burn forever. He was…

He was looking at Kaia.

“Mr. Winchester! Dean. You need to get out of here.”

The fire domed around her. Her eyes lit up from within, white and dazzling, until Dean had to squint to see her. The air sizzled and blazed, causing her hair to fan out around her head. But she remained unburned.

“How are you—”

“Stop asking questions. It says you need to get out of here. It wants you to wake up, Dean.”

“ _What_ does? How did you get here?”

She snarled a little as the flames crested, but it passed over them like a wave, slow and eerie, leaving them unharmed.  Instead of answering, she reached out and grabbed his shoulders before hurling herself against him.

Someone of her size shouldn’t have had that much force behind her. It was like being rammed by a bull, or tackled by a lioness. They slammed together into the wall. It parted like water water around them, and they sank.

Dean landed on his back in an airless moment of panic, gasping like a fish. Kaia was still gripping his shoulders hard enough to bruise, and the look on her face was enough to force all the air back into his lungs at once.

“Hey, kid, are you…” He turned his head and coughed. Something was wrong with his vision. “Are you okay?”

She looked unseeingly at his face, and she shook her head. Her eyes wild and dark. Her breathing was shallow, coming in short, sharp bursts, and all the color had drained from her face.

“Alright, Kaia. Just. Listen to me. Deep breaths.” He took his own advice, for once. After a few minutes, he realized she was still on top of him, but the enormous weight and force she’d had before was gone. Now she was just a frightened girl, barely fifteen. “Why don’t you see if you can sit up, huh?”

She did, and once she was more or less supporting her own weight, he rolled over, coughing and taking in the scent of dry dirt and singed grass. The sun was bright and hard on his back. A shadow fell across him, and he squinted up at its source.

“You can’t ever tell Jody.” The flintiness had returned to her manner, just a little. “In fact you...you can’t tell anyone. _Please_.”

“What?" 

“I told her...I told her I’d use my power safely. That I’d be smart about it. And instead I did...” He couldn’t see her face in the harsh glare, but he saw the shiver that ran through her body. “That. But—it told me to. It was a matter of life and death, and I was the only one who could help.”

  
“ _Who_ , Kaia?”

“I didn’t see it,” she admitted. “It was too...it was too much. But it said...it was trying to reach you, but you couldn’t hear it. That’s why it came to me. It...it said it’s the one who pulled you out, Dean.”

  
Dean’s insides turned to ice. “The one who—”  

She was gone.

He called for her until his voice was hoarse, but he was alone. He staggered upright and finally managed to look around. He immediately dropped to his knees again. He recognized this place, this scarred field of charred grass and felled trees, where not even the birds sang. He looked down and to his left.

He was looking at his own grave, ripped open like a wound.

* * *

 

Dean sat bolt upright. He was drenched in sweat. He’d fallen asleep on the floor, on the old braided rug that used to belong to Karen Singer. The phonograph needled its empty static into the night. For a moment, Dean almost heard voices in it.

The storm had passed, mostly, leaving behind only the steady ticking of rain on the tin roof. On any other night, Dean would have found it soothing, would have let it lull him like a child into a slow sleep. Tonight, though, there was no peace in it, or in anything.

Dean got to his feet with some effort. He braced for a moment of pain as he stood up, but when he looked, the skin on his soles was intact and free of blood. The breath that escaped him then was shaky and dry, and he listed against the phonograph stand. He blindly reached out and took the needle from its groove. His shoulder throbbed as he pressed his finger against the disc to stop its spin. Wait.

“What the _hell_?”

 He lit a lamp and held up the record. Somehow, it had gotten warped, like it had melted in spots. He squinted at it uncomprehendingly for a few moments, and then set it down. He  turned and made his way to the back of the room to where his bed stood, pushing against the thick summer air.

There was still some water in the ewer—tepid now, but it would do. He poured it into the basin and splashed it on his face, trying to rub the gritty, hot feeling from his eyes. He caught sight of his own face in the mirror, drawn taut and haunted, and had to look away.

He thought back to the letter he wrote to Sam, the ragged thoughts caught inside a neat white envelope. Dean considered feeding the whole thing to the lamp-flame and sweeping up the ash. Instead, he remembered the closing lines. He knelt down and opened up the cabinet, and withdrew a half-empty bottle.

  _At least,_ he thought to himself, as he unscrewed the top, _I know how to occupy myself until it passes._

 He blew out the lamp, and sat in the dark, and drank until morning.

* * *

On Wednesday evening, Jody wired to say that Kaia had come down with ague and wouldn’t be coming by for at least a few days, until the fever broke. Dean drowned out the roiling in his stomach with another helping of cornbread stuffing.

 “I’ll do it,” Dean said, collecting the plates and putting them in the sink with more force than usual. “I know how to wash my own damn socks.”

Bobby didn’t say anything. He’d been poring over a collection of newspapers since Dean came downstairs, all bloodshot and pale, for breakfast. Then he’d disappeared in the middle of the day on an errand, leaving Dean to deal with any customers that might come by. Fortunately, none did, because Dean wasn’t sure how he’d manage human conversation when his head felt like it was full of wet cats.

 Finally, when Dean was up to his elbows in soapy water, Bobby spoke.

 “Got a possible case for you in Illinois.”

 Dean stopped, brandishing a spoon. “Huh?”

 “Did I stutter, boy? Illinois. Possible case.”

 “I...Wasn’t Garth just down that way a couple weeks ago?”

“Yup. You want to hear the details or not?”

 Dean nodded with more enthusiasm than he felt. “You bet.”

 But then, strangely, Bobby hesitated. “Now, if you decide you don’t want it, that’s fine. I’ll get Garth, or Annie Hawkins on the trail.”

 Dean narrowed his eyes. “Nah,” he said, turning back to the sink, “let me have it.”

 "Okay.”

 By the time he’d dried and put away the dishes, Bobby had laid the whole thing out, and Dean was practically ready to jump out of his skin.

Bobby leaned back in his chair when he was done talking. “So. What do y’reckon?”

“I think,” Dean said tightly, “I’m getting the next train to Pontiac, Illinois.”

Bobby nodded, but the satisfaction on his face had a grim cast to it. “Thought you might say that.”  He reached under one of the newspapers and pulled out a ticket. “First train in the morning leaves at five o’clock. You best get some sleep.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bobby and Jody's friendly-flirtatious-mildly adversarial relationship was an understated little gem of SPN, so it's fun to write.
> 
> I hope you're enjoying. Thanks for reading!


	3. Keep the Home Fires Burning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _In which Dean goes to an asylum in Pontiac, Illinois, and nothing goes as expected._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is no violence or death in this chapter, but because of the setting I've added some additional tags in the chapter end-notes.

A crowd of people thronged the station when Dean’s train arrived, and he did his best to slip through the press of bodies unnoticed.

 Past the platform, he heard an even louder tumult of bodies, punctuated by shouting and strange, harsh cries, and he ducked around the stationmaster’s office to find their source.

The marketplace had been turned into a makeshift paddock, where a herd of horses jostled, kicking up dust in the sun. Roan and sorrel and bay, shoulder to shoulder, they tossed their heads and called out. They were all being watched over by several large men in pale brown uniforms.

 _Bound for the front_ , Dean realized, as he watched them wheel and turn. _Poor bastards_. They had even less say than he did.

 Watching them, he thought of the saddle Dad had left—a masterpiece of supple, hand-tooled black leather, which was in a storage box in a cabin in Kansas. Dean had put it there, along with the jacket  he’d inherited. After John died, he hadn’t wanted to look at either of them ever again. But he couldn’t bear to part with them, either. He’d taken a match and a hammer to the rest of his inheritance, such as it was, but he’d spared them.

Well, them, and the watch. Its ticking had matched the one in his brain, the one counting down the hours until his deal came due.

He looked back at the dark mass, thundering under the cloudless sky. It’d been a long time since he’d been on the back of a horse. The last time, he’d been dragging a wendigo corpse, which hadn’t been much fun, but had earned him a decent bounty from a collector. But then he thought back before that,  to when he was very small, sitting behind his father, charging through the fields with his mouth full of laughter and his fists full of John’s jacket. Or, after, when he was a little bit older, with Sam behind him, small and quiet with sleep, or lanky and whooping in joy and terror (not much of a rider, Sam).

There was something to be said for that kind of freedom.

Dean set the thought aside and tightened his grip on the battered old medical bag Bobby lent him. He didn’t have time for reminiscence. He had work to do.

* * *

Saint Dymphna’s Asylum stood in the outskirts of town, on a quiet, leafy street. He’d taken a taxi rather than walk, feeling more flush with cash than usual. As the car pulled through the tall gates, Dean nodded to the guard.

“Good day,” Dean said, with the disinterest of someone who was used to being in authority.

“Do you have an appointment, sir?”

“An appointment?”

"You’ll need to make an appointment with the head doctor at least a week in advance. Sorry, Mister…”

“Doctor,” Dean interrupted, smiling tightly. “Fairbanks. From the Governor’s Office. I’ve been sent to look into the, ah, _incidents_ you’ve had recently. To ensure that the good citizens of Illinois aren’t having their tax dollars wasted. And that the patients are getting the kind of treatment they deserve, of course.”

 As he spoke, he reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and took out a letter and handed it to the guard.

“We’ve...already had several state men out here last month,” the guard said, looking a little pale as he unfolded the letter. “Police, too. You name it.”

 “Sure,” Dean said, raising his eyebrows, “but you haven’t had _me_ yet. But please, go ahead and check my credentials.” The driver turned off the engine, leaving only the creak of branches and the rustling of the isinglass curtain over Dean’s head.

This part was always a gamble—well, what _wasn’t_ in his line of work—but Bobby’s skills at forgery were almost unparalleled. ( _Almost_ , because Sam had a better eye for the nuances of color and shading.) As long as Dean kept his poker face intact, he generally didn’t have problems. For the times he did, he had his smile. And for the times that his smile didn’t do the job, he had his fists. And, for the times his fists didn’t quite manage it either, he had a bottle of chloroform.

Fortunately, it appeared he wouldn’t need any of those right now.

The guard looked up, wide-eyed, as he handed Dean back his letter, and dutifully touched the brim of his cap.

“My apologies, Doctor Fairbanks,” he stammered. “We, we weren’t expecting you.”

“Wouldn’t be much of a surprise inspection if you were, now would it?”

“No, sir. Please, go ahead.” He regained some of his composure as he moved to open the gates. They were high and heavy as Heaven, topped by two bald-eyed stone angels. The whole thing gave Dean the creeps.  

“Thanks very much,” Dean said, narrowing in his eyes. His fingers curled around the iron coin he kept in his pocket, in case  he needed to throw it and buy himself some time. “Christo,” he mumbled.

“Sorry, Doctor? I didn’t catch that.”

Dean unclench his fist.  He smiled. “I said have a good day.”

The guard frowned, but said nothing except, “And you, sir.”

A moment later, Dean heard the gates shriek and then clang shut with an air of finality. He  just about managed to conceal his wince.

 The building itself was set back from the road, at the end of a curving driveway. Tall and austere, it made Dean think of a hospital trying to be a hotel, or a prison trying to be a palace. The rain hadn’t reached here, apparently, and the lawn was bleached and brown where the sun hit it.

Someone clearly cared for the garden, however, because there was a profusion of colorful flowers running riot under the windows. The gardener responsible for it didn’t seem to be working today, though. In fact, Dean couldn’t see anyone walking around outside at all. There appeared to be no one, other than the guard, on the entire estate.

He gave the driver a generous tip, then sent him on his way. He heard the gate open again, and then close, this time muffled by the distance. It was less unnerving from here.

Before he mounted the stairs to the door, Dean took a deep breath and brushed some invisible lint from his shoulders. The coat fit him like a picture,  but he’’d had to borrow the spats from Bobby. Hopefully they wouldn’t look too closely at that.

He rang the doorbell and waited for something to happen. The door was tall and arched, like an echo of a cathedral’s, and Dean couldn’t hear any movement coming from the other side. Then, all at once, there was the sound of several locks being drawn back, and the door opened a fraction.

“Good day,” he said again, smiling.

Whoever held the door was standing mostly behind it, and their face was hard to see. “We’re not accepting visitors at the moment without a week’s notice.”

“I understand, ma’am,” Dean said, taking out his letter of introduction again. “Only, this isn’t a visit.”

The door didn’t open any further, but the woman behind the door reached out to take the letter. The minutes that followed grew increasingly awkward, as she read in silence and kept Dean firmly waiting.

“I’ve never heard of you,” she said flatly, handing the letter back. “What happened to Doctor Dysart?”

Dean smiled harder. “Eugene’s, ah, lumbago is acting up. He’s taking a week at Okawville Springs.” Bobby’s research was seldom wrong, and no one could lie on the fly like Dean. Besides, it might be true.

She let out a _tsk_ and for a second Dean thought she might have been calling his bluff. But no. The door opened and she stepped aside, letting him in. “I told him to look after himself the last time here was here, but he never listens.”

“No ma’am,” Dean said, seriously, “he sure doesn’t.”

“Doctor Adler is with a patient at the moment, but I'll take you up to his waiting room.”

“Much appreciated.”

Dean looked around the room with speed and accuracy, honed by years of having things with sharp teeth jump out at him. High ceiling. Suitably grand and foreboding staircase. And opposite, facing the door, and enormous oil painting of a pale woman with huge, sad, dark eyes. Her hair flowed freely under a gilded halo, and there was a faint red slash across her neck which made Dean frown. She held a long sword, angled down, with its tip buried in the throat of some squealing demon. She was flanked by two angels with broad red wings, who bore a striking resemblance to the Gish sisters.

“Our patroness,” his guide said, nodding to the painting. “Flanked by the archangels Michael and Raphael.”

Dean cleared his throat. “You must be...very proud.”

She smiled at that, which at least got Dean off the hook for finding something else to say.

They made their way through the reception room, up the stairs, and through a long corridor with many doors. Ornate woodwork and parquet gave way to plain walls and linoleum. Still, this place was swank, compared to the last place he’d been in. Swank and strangely...serene.

“It's, uh, sure nice and quiet,” Dean said, feeling unease tingling along his spine. All of the doors were identical, entirely  featureless except for the room number painted on each one.

“Afternoon rest period,” she said, prompt and officious. “We find that in the summer the patients tend to get... unmanageable in the hottest parts of the day.”

“Of course,” Dean said, hoping he sounded correct.

“Doctor Dysart suggested it,” she added, as she lead him down another hallway, toward another solid wooden door. She wore a ring of keys that clinked against her hip with each step.  “And it’s definitely come in handy after the...incidents of last month.”

Dean’s hunter instincts sprang to life and looked hard at her back. He tried to keep a veneer of disinterest “Yes, I, uh. I read about that. What do you think caused it?”

She let out a sour laugh. “Who can say, with these people? Full moon?”

“It was a waning moon on May seventeenth,” Dean said harshly, before he could stop himself.

“I...I suppose it was,” she said, uncertainty. She coughed. “I don’t know. The patients here they...they come from good families. They have good upbringings. They aren’t, usually, violent. But there is a certain kind of...suggestibility. It can be useful for their treatment, of course.”

“Of course. But?”

“Some are more prone than others to...religious paranoia.” She rubbed her thumb over the gold cross at her neck.

“Religious paranoia. You mean like...demons?”

They’d finally reached the door. She looked at him, a little furtively, as she unlocked it with one of the heavy iron keys. Probably not some kind of creature, then. Just a very unsettling human being.

“One person says they see a demon, or...or something else, and pretty soon you’ve got all sixty people believing it. It doesn’t take much.” Quietly, so quietly that Dean nearly couldn’t hear her, she said: “Such a nice girl, too.” 

“Something...else?” Dean asked. She pointed to a chair, an expensive thing of oxblood leather and brass studs, and he sat. “Did you notice anything unusual on that day? Any, um, I don’t know...any cold spots, or the smell of sulfur?”

She looked at him for a long moment, as if weighing him, or his words, or both. Dean felt his throat constrict, and he looked at the door, to see if there was any way to unlock it from the inside. He had, of course, a series of blades and lock-picks on him, but something in her gaze made him feel stripped bare and raw.

“No, nothing like that, Doctor...Fairbanks. Just, patients hearing voices. We had some unusual weather, and I think that may have agitated them. That’s why we’re so strict about the afternoon rest period. We’ve learned our lesson.”

“I’m...I’m certainly glad to hear that. Routine, um. Routine is important.”

She nodded seriously. “Routine and discipline, Doctor.” She tapped the side of her head, under her starched white cap.”That’s the way to a healthy mind.”

“I...yes.”  Dean gripped the arm of the chair, digging his fingernails into the leather and thinking about the leftover cobbler he’d eaten for breakfast, and the fact that he was probably still hungover. “It sure is.”

“The Doctor will see you shortly. I’ll announce you. Just wait here.” She paused at the door. “Are there any records you’d like to inspect?”

His heart leapt. “The...the patient who first heard the voices. Is that record available?”

She frowned. “Doctor Adler is with her at the moment, but I’ll ask him to bring it in when he’s done.”

“Thanks,” Dean said. “Thank you.”

The door shut, but didn’t lock, and Dean stood up as soon as he heard her footsteps retreating. He darted behind the desk and began rifling through drawers, ignoring the cut crystal decanter of liquor on the side table. The top of the desk was immaculately clean. Not even the blotting paper had a smudge of ink on it.

The rest of the desk, however, held a variety of things: Papers, mostly, written in the near-indecipherable scrawl of doctors. The top drawer held a velvet-lined case, filled with a variety of heavy brass devices whose use Dean couldn’t quite guess, but which made his skin crawl, just the same. He quickly shut that one.

His toe scuffed against something as he moved, and he looked down to see a long wooden pole, like a walking stick for someone even taller than Sam. This, Dean recognized. It was used to push patients out of the way if they came closer than allowed, to keep them at a distance, to pin them against a wall until they could be restrained. He knew from experience the kind of bruises it could leave.

 “Good times,” he said to the empty room.

He decided to move away from the desk entirely. He turned his attention to the large wooden filing cabinet in the corner. Locked. Of course. He was in the middle of debating whether he’d have time to pick the lock before the doctor arrived, when a paperweight on top of the cabinet drew his attention.

There were two pieces of paper underneath it, folded into thirds. One page was torn and yellowed around the edges, while the other was the same heavy paper as the ones in the desk drawers. Dean shot a glance at the door, and then lifted the paperweight. He walked back over to the desk and rested the backs of his thighs against the edge  as he looked them over.

The first one was a drawing done in blunt graphite, with dark jagged lines. It was hard for Dean to decipher, at first, exactly what he was looking at. There didn’t seem to be much logic to it, and he turned the paper over several times. He wondered if a child had made it.

It looked like some kind of...wheel. A burning wheel. Or no, were those wings, and not flames? Maybe both? And—Christ!—were those _eyes_ ? It definitely looked like some kind of demon, though not any one that Dean had ever come across before. The fire was common enough; any average Joe of a demon burned like a coal on the inside. It’s why they smoked, and why they lit up like fireworks when you knifed them. The eyes? That wasn’t unheard of, he guessed, though maybe not _quite_ so many.  Wings, neither. But _all of them together_?

 _Well,_ Dean thought, remembering where he was _, maybe this is just the result of an overactive imagination._

He turned to the second paper. It was...it was the same thing. Done by a much more competent artist, for sure, but undeniably the same creature. It was definitely wings _and_ fire. And eyes.

He heard footsteps. Dean opened the top drawer of the desk again and withdrew two blank sheaves of paper, then folded them. He slid them under the paperweight and hastily retreated to the chair where he’d been put.

He managed to shove the two drawings into his bag, next to the cigar box full of salt, and then pull out a tiny vial of holy water, just before the door opened. He crossed, and then uncrossed his legs and debated what to do with his hands. Dean arranged himself into what he hoped was a confident shape, resting his chin on his thumb and pointer finger, and looking vaguely bored.

That was how the doctor found him when the door swung wide.

He was speaking to someone down the hall, apparently in the direction he’d just come from. “...can return back to her room, now, thank you.” He turned to Dean as he finished. Dean stood, after a beat of letting himself be observed, ready with a cordial smile and an outstretched hand.

“Doctor Adler,” Dean said, “I’ve heard so much about y—”

But just as he spoke, a nurse passed the door, and a step behind her came a pale figure with vibrant red hair. The figure slowed, then stopped, as though it had forgotten something. Dean realized it was a young woman in a white lawn dress. She turned to look at him wide, dark eyes that, even at this distance, pierced him like a pin.

She started at the sight of him, drawing in a sharp breath. He squinted at her, wondering if he’d met her somewhere before. She opened her mouth to speak, but just then the nurse appeared, taking firm hold of her elbow.

“Come along, Miss Milton,” the nurse said, in an officiously cheerful voice, and pulled her out of sight.

“Dean Winchester!”

Fortunately, Doctor Adler’s attention was focused on the scene behind him, rather than on Dean’s face at that moment. However, something of his shock must have showed when the doctor turned around, because he looked at Dean curiously for a moment.

“Apologies,” Doctor Adler said, smoothing the front of his jacket and keeping his eyes keenly on Dean. “Miss Milton and I just had a session, so she’s in a, ah, heightened state.”

“Who’s…” Dean’s voice stuck, and he cleared his throat to dislodge it. “Who’s Dean Winchester?”

Doctor Adler frowned. “A...fixation of Miss Milton’s. A former fixation, I thought. However, I...think the events of last month may have…” He shook his head. “Apologies. You’re Doctor Fairbanks, from the Governor's Office, is that correct?”

“Yes. Yes, I am.” This time they managed to shake hands without incident. He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket once more to present his letter of introduction, but Doctor Adler waved him off. “I spoke to Nurse McKellen. She says everything is in order. Please pass my well-wishes on to Eugene.”

“I’ll do that.”

 “Much obliged. Drink?” Doctor Adler gestured to the decanter behind his desk.

 Dean made the mistake of glancing at it, and his mouth watered instantly. It looked like the good stuff. Warm and punchy, probably. He looked away. “No,” Dean said, “thank you. I don’t drink.”

 “Oh, no?”

“Never touch the stuff.”

Doctor Adler raised an eyebrow at that, but nodded. “I admire your restraint. But everything in moderation, I say.” He uncapped the decanter and poured himself a finger of whiskey.  Dean focused on uncapping the vial of holy water in his pocket while the doctor was otherwise occupied.

Just before he took a drink, however, Dean said, “I _will_ take a club soda if you’ve got it.”

Doctor Adler blinked over the rim of his tumbler. He took a sip, then set it down. “My pleasure,” he said. Dean took the opportunity while he was fiddling with the seltzer bottle to slip some holy water into his glass. He slid the vial up his sleeve just as the doctor turned back around. “Here you are.”

“Thanks,” Dean said as he raised his glass in a toast. “Mm,” he said, taking a drink and hating it. It just tasted like...angry water. Slightly salty, angry water.  “Refreshing.”

“I never touch the stuff,” Doctor Adler said holding up his own glass, “except as a mixer.” He tipped the tumbler back and drained half of it.

Dean gave his blandest smile. “I’m sure. Now, Doctor Adler, about my visit...”

“Yes, it will have something to do with the events of last month, I imagine.” He sat, resting his elbows on the desk, and gestured for Dean to return to his seat.

“You keep calling them _events_ , but do you wanna be more specific?”

Doctor Adler scowled. “Was the report I sent not detailed enough?”

Dean balked internally. It could be a bluff, or it could be wounded professional pride. Either way he’d have to be cautious. “It’s not that Doctor Adler...” 

“Frank, please.”

“Alright. It’s just...I’m more of a hands-on man, myself, Frank. And since I’m new to the office, I wanted to...put the time in. You understand.”

 “Indeed. You’re a young, ambitious fellow. And any friend of Eugene’s is a friend of mine. But before we get down to brass tacks, I want to reiterate that, since the seventeenth of May, we’ve had no more unusual events, and that my staff has taken great pains to restore order and calmness to our patients’ lives.”

“Now that, Frank,”  Dean said, finishing his drink with a grimace, “I can absolutely believe.”

“Excellent. So, Doctor—”

 “Call me Douglas. Or Doug, if you’d rather.”

“Your name is...Douglas Fairbanks?”

Dean shrugged, the very picture of rueful cheer. “It’s not as though I chose it.”

“No, I suppose not. Anyway, um, Doug. What would you like to see in this impromptu inspection of yours? Nurse McKellen mentioned some files?”

“Well, first of all, I’d like to start with any areas where the _events_ occurred, and I’d like to speak to any staff or patients that were involved.”

“Hm. The first part’s easy enough.”

“But?”

“But I’m afraid most of the patients who were directly involved would be set into another state of hysteria if they were encouraged to talk about it again. It's taken us a lot of work to restore control.”

Again Dean thought of the soundless halls and felt unnerved. “And you've certainly done that.”

"Yes,” Doctor Adler agreed, pleased.

Dean was growing impatient, though he knew he had to be careful. “You said _most of_ the patients.” Dean sat forward in his chair and fixed the doctor in his stare. “Who's the odd one out?”

Doctor Adler sighed and finished his drink, then stood. “Let me show you around the grounds,” he said, “and then I'll introduce you to Anna Milton.”

* * *

“So, you're saying that, before three weeks ago, there were no flowers at all on the grounds?”

“Not exactly,” said Doctor Adler, surveying the empty lawn. “We’ve always had a rose garden, for example. Well-behaved patients are allowed time there as a reward.”

Dean made a noncommittal noise, scanning the surroundings. Unfortunately, the electroscope was too big to carry in his bag, and so checking for any electrical disturbances was out of the question. Maybe he should have gone with his first instinct and disguised himself as some kind of delivery man.

As the day crept further into the afternoon, there were a few more signs of life. Nurses and orderlies took their lunch at a long trestle table in the kitchen, with the door open to let the breeze in, and strips of sticky paper overhead to keep the flies out.

None of them had much to say to Dean when he pressed them about what happened. All of their accounts were relatively similar, and he got the impression that they’d been told not to be too helpful. One girl in particular looked up at him with big  frightened blue eyes until Doctor Adler stepped in to reassure her.

“Amelia is new here,” Doctor Adler said. “She only started a week ago, and she seems a timid sort of girl. I’m not sure if she’ll last.”

As they walked, a groundskeeper appeared from somewhere with a wheelbarrow, and disappeared to somewhere else. He touched the brim of his cap as he passed, but didn’t stop to talk.

  
“Mute,” Doctor Adler whispered, when the man was mostly out of earshot.

“Ah,” Dean said, for lack of anything else to say, and finding the whole exchange kind of rude.

“Besides the rose garden you saw, there are the flowerbeds at the gates,” Doctor Adler continued, suddenly returning to their earlier subject. They’d completed their tour and were back at the front of the building.

Everything seemed normal, from what Dean could tell: no cold spots, no sulfurous residue, no sigils. Nothing, that was, except the unruly abundance of flowers that had turned half of the lawn into a tidal wave of color. “But these,” said Doctor Adler, gesturing toward them, “these sprang up overnight. And I mean _overnight_. On the morning of the seventeenth, that was pristine.”

“And on the morning of the eighteenth...it’s like Capability Brown got his hands on the place.”  

“Yes. And then those...burned spots.” Doctor Adler nodded his head in the direction of several brown patches of grass near the flowers.

“Oh, I...I thought that was due to the drought.”

Doctor Adler looked at him, puzzled. “What? No, we’ve had rain here. That’s why they’re not as, hm, noticeable as they were before.”

When they made their way over, Dean stood for a moment, trying to make sense of what he was looking at. The grass was bright green, the color of a pool table, interspersed with peculiar dark blemishes where it had burned away. He squatted down to see better, and ran his finger along one of the boundaries.

“Is this from lightning?” Five lightning strikes in a fifty foot radius seemed unlikely, but you never knew.

“That’s what we thought.”

Dean looked up at him. “What you _thought_?”

Doctor Adler sounded, for the first time, almost rattled. “Let me rephrase that. There’s no other earthly explanation for their pattern. So, it must have been lightning.”

Dean rocked back on his heels to better see what Doctor Adler meant. The burned patches stretched across and past the entire front of the building, and were crisscrossed so that their lines were hard to discern. But.

“They look like—” Dean stopped.

“Like feathers,” said Doctor Adler, “yes.”

Dean’s thoughts immediately landed on the two stolen drawings currently sitting in his bag. His mouth went dry.

“Thank you.” Dean stood, wiping his palms on his trousers. “I think I’d like to speak to Miss Milton now.”

* * *

This time, she didn’t say his name. There was an air of listlessness about her, as though she’d gone blurred at the edges, as she sat on her narrow bed. Her hair, though, still formed a fiery crown as the light poured in around her through the window. She was the one point of color in an otherwise white room.

“Do you mind,” Dean asked softly, as they stood in the doorway, “if I speak to her alone for a few moments, Frank?”

For once, Doctor Adler apparently found Dean’s question completely normal. “Of course. She’s just finished luncheon, so she should be in a relatively calm state. We’ve been able to decrease her dose over the last week, as well, happily.” He spoke at a normal volume, as though she wasn’t there, which Dean found intensely irritating. He stepped back to give them some distance, and the doctor followed suit.

“Thanks,” Dean said, still just as softly. “Now, you mentioned that she came here from somewhere else?”

“Mm. She came here from Connor Beverly, in Ohio, just over a year ago.” He lowered his voice, too, now, thank god. “The doctors there felt that she had a better chance of recovery here, away from reminders of her parents’ murder.”

“Oh,” Dean said. _Oh._ Oh this was not at all how he was expecting this day to go.

“She’s a bright girl, you see. According to all reports, she was well-liked, and studious. She comes from a good family. She was attending the Ohio Residential College for Women. Studying journalism, as I understand it.”

“Journalism,” Dean said. “Interesting.” He stepped forward, but Frank grabbed his elbow.

“Do you want a cane? Just in case you need to defend yourself?”

“Defend myself?” His voice had risen, and he dropped it down again. “Against a sedated ninety-eight pound girl?”

“I know what you’re thinking, Doug, but it’s…” He leaned in close, and Dean was hit with the smell of whiskey on his breath. Now he was finally whispering. “Miss Milton had an altercation with and orderly at Connor Beverly. It took four people to restrain her.”

“What, why?”

“Well. As you know, sometimes in states of extreme agitation, people can display unusual strength.”

“Yeah,” said Dean. “I mean, yes, I know. But why was she in a state of...extreme agitation?”

Doctor Adler shook his head. “She insisted the orderly was a demon, trying to kill her.”

“A demon.”

“Indeed. Miss Milton comes from a religious background, you understand. Her late father was a well-respected pastor. It is usually a source of strength for her, as it is for many of our patients but...sometimes it can lead to—dangerous delusions. In that particular instance, it was approaching the anniversary of their death, and we think...”

“I follow.” He looked around the door frame again. She hadn’t moved, and gave no indication she knew they were there. “I’ll take my chances without the cane. Thanks anyway.”

“Suit yourself,” the doctor said, as he withdrew. “But call out if you need assistance.”

Dean stepped back into the room, and shut the door gently behind him. “Miss...Miss Milton?”

Her gaze drifted over to him, its keenness dull and blunted, until she took in his face, and then she seemed to come back to life a little. She tilted her head to the side, slowly, and Dean didn’t know why the movement made him pause, but it did.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hello. I’m...Doctor Fairbanks.”

She blinked, and the corner of her mouth curved up a fraction. Something like mirth swam up in her eyes. “Are you?”

“I...” Dean looked back at the door, to check it was closed. “No. I’m not.”

“I know.”

“Who...” He shook his head, and tried to think of what he wanted to ask, but too many things crowded his tongue. He tried a different route. “The doctor said you were studying journalism. That true?”

“The _doctor_ ,” she rolled her eyes as though she found the question to be utter bullshit.

“Yes?”

“Yes. It’s true. I...I like writing. Delivering the truth into the world. I like learning about people, and what they do.”

“Right,” Dean said, furrowing his brow. “And this—this whole thing isn’t some kind of...Nellie Bly stunt.”

She laughed at that, acerbic, but said nothing.

“Okay. Just...” He was at a loss, like he’d never interviewed a witness before. “What happened to your hand?” For one of her hands was bandaged around the palm, swathed in a large quantity of gauze.

“Cut it,” she said.

“To hurt yourself?”

“To save myself.”

“Right,” he said again, feeling his skin prickle with anticipation. “From the demons?”

The chemical veil seemed to lift from her, and she looked at him intensely. “Demons? No, not here. I...don’t think.” She swallowed and looked around, as though making sure. “You haven’t noticed any, have you?”

“No,” said Dean, truthfully. “I’ve spent most of the day checking, and I haven’t found a single sign of them. No sulfur, no black eyes, nothing.”

She relaxed and nodded. “Thank you.” She sounded relieved. It was probably the first time anyone had believed her, he realized.

“It’s my job,” he said.

“I know that, too,” she said. “From what they say, you’re very good at it.”

“They?”

She gave him a look, like she wasn’t sure if he was joking or not.  “The angels, Dean. They talk about you all the time.”

“There’s no such thing as angels,” Dean scoffed, without thinking.

Anna looked taken aback, as though Dean had told there was no such thing as the moon. “Of course there is. I’ve heard them in my head for years. I know all about you. Sam, too. Though they don’t seem to like him very much. Is there something wrong with him?”

Dean had gone cold. “Whatever your hearing is bullshit. Sam’s a good kid.”

She smiled at that, unfazed by his tone. “I _knew_ they were wrong. I don’t know how, but I did.”

“Listen, Anna, I don’t know what’s going on…” ( _Now there’s an understatement_ , he thought.) “Maybe you’re psychic,  or maybe it’s, I don’t know, fairies, fairies, but...”

“It’s not _fairies_.”

“The point is, angels aren’t real.” He didn’t know why this was important, but it was.

She grew very still. “September eighteenth.”

Dean shook his head. “What?”

“ _Dean Winchester is saved._ First thing I heard, clear as a bell. September eighteenth.”

“I...”

“That’s when it started. It’s like something—pushed a button, or flipped a switch. It’s how I knew my parents were..." She looked away abruptly.

“I heard. I’m sorry.”

She shook her head. “It was me they were after.”

“The angels.”

“Demons, that time. I left in the middle of a class.  I got the first train home, thinking I could. I don’t know. That I could stop it, somehow.  But it was...I was too late.” Tears welled up at the corner of her eyes and spilled over, streaking down her cheeks and rolling off of her chin.

  
“Hey,” Dean said, after an excruciating moment of watching her cry. He touched her arm. “Hey, it’s not your fault.”

Anna wiped her face with the back of her hand. “Dean Winchester telling someone not to blame themselves? Now _that_ is unbelievable.”

“Hey,” Dean said again, but couldn’t actually refute it.

She blinked, slowly this time, as though she was fighting the urge to fall asleep, and plunged ahead. “Then you went missing for over a month.”

“I...” Dean stepped away. This was a mistake. This whole day had been a mistake, bearing down on him with a sudden and inescapable weight, and he needed to get out of here before he was crushed under it.

“They looked everywhere for you,” she said. “But you were hidden.”  She looked at him again, and he could tell that she was struggling against a different kind of heaviness. “Where did you go?”

“I don’t know,” Dean admitted, continuing to edge toward the door. “I don’t remember. One minute I’m digging my way out of a grave, the next minute I wake up in a barn ten miles from town, and it’s November.”

“How very queer,” Anna mumbled. She shook herself, then held up her palm. “This, this was for the angels.”

“What, like a blood offering?”

“No. They wanted to hurt me. I drove them out.” She cradled her bandaged hand with her other. “I killed some of them. I didn’t mean to, I swear.”

“The... _angels_ wanted to hurt you? What were they going to do, hit you in the head with their harps?”

“Angels don’t have harps,” she said, sounding peevish. “They have...” She yawned. “They have wings of fire and glory, and thousands eyes that see all, the better to magnify the power of the Lord...”

“Thousands of eyes?” Dean asked, rushing forward again. She nodded at him. “And the wings, are they...are they like...a wheel?”

She nodded again, just one jolt of her head. “Sometimes.” Anna slowly reclined back onto her bed, and Dean got the sense that she was sinking somewhere deep and cold. “Sometimes.” She closed her own eyes, and suddenly she looked very young. “The nurses took away my mirror,” she whispered, “because sometimes I could still see the angel looking back at me.”

“Anna,” Dean said, growing desperate. “Anna. I’m going to need you to stay awake. Hey.”

She shook her head, a faint movement against the pillow. “Your mother was right,” she said, before she went under completely. “Angels are watching... over you. Good luck.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional warnings for: implied institutional violence, casual ableism
> 
> Sorry for posting this one a bit late in the day. I was rather spectacularly hung over. But in my defense, drinking whiskey counts as research. 
> 
> Next week will mark the end of Part One. (FYI, that may post on Sunday, because I've got Responsible Adulting to do, ugh.)


	4. Has Anybody Seen My Girl?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dean enjoys the Pontiac nightlife and gets way more than he bargained for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At least Dean has a little bit of fun before everything goes wrong! A few additional warnings in the chapter end notes.

Dean walked back to town to save himself some cash, and to give himself time to understand what he’d seen, but he hadn’t really managed to do the latter.

He bought two bottles of beer and sent a telegram to Bobby before checking in to his hotel. The telegram was in code, as always: “Hunt was a bust. No game. But saw interesting bird signs. Home tomorrow.”

That last part wouldn't make any sense to him, Dean knew. “Bird” didn't mean anything the way that, say, “hog” meant demon, or “rabbit” meant shifter. In his mind's eye, he could see Bobby scowling at the telegram and asking _what the hell is he talking about_ to a confused and faintly frightened delivery boy.

(The clerk at Western Union counter had brightly informed him that if it was birds he was after, there was good turkey hunting up by the quarry. Wherever that was.)

Now Dean’s mind turned to other kinds of hunting; namely, for food and company. He made his way back to the hotel, and, slipping the Do Not Disturb sign over the door knob, set about getting ready. The Astoria was even more moth-eaten than Dean remembered. But at least it was cheap, and quiet, and, more importantly, no one who worked there  seemed to remember _him._

He stripped off his suit and brushed it out before laying it carefully over the chair. For the moment, it was the only one he had that didn't have blood stains on it somewhere. (He kept telling himself he’d deal with that when he had more energy, but somehow he never did.) The shirt, he kept on, and put on a pair of linen trousers and a blazer. Dean looked himself over carefully in the mirror, smoothing his hair down and adjusting his collar. _Nice enough_ , he decided. Nice enough to catch a girl’s eye, at least.

Pontiac had one burlesque, that he knew of, and he made his way there through the blue eight o’clock streets. He needed to let off some steam. The last few days had all gone sideways one way or another and he needed something simple to focus on, to get his head back in the game.

He was still thinking of the drawings, now tucked carefully into John’s old journal, when he felt the creeping sensation of being watched. The crowds were thin in this part of town, and he scanned the street quickly in all directions, letting his hand drift to his hip, where he kept his pistol.

Two large men in grease-streaked trousers leaned against a nearby wall, on a smoking break. Machinists, by the looks of them, working a late shift. They were talking in Polish, sounded like, and engrossed in their own conversation. Walking briskly in the opposite direction, probably probably homeward, was a woman wearing a drab dress and pince-nez. A boy in a flat cap and too-big shirt loitered on the corner behind Dean, looking confused when Dean glanced back at him. A newspaper boy, maybe.  A few other people came and went, but no one seemed particularly interested in him, and when he looked up at the windows around him, almost all were dark.

He frowned to himself and kept walking.                             

* * *

The woman in his lap was called Maureen. Or at least, that’s the name she’d told him as she’d slipped her arms around him. She laughed as he kissed her throat, a vibrant sound, harsh with the excitement of life.

The show had been mediocre, mostly, except for one act featuring a woman in an elaborate feathered cape and not much else.  The way she’d moved, the way she’d gazed at the audience with bold and flashing eyes, as though daring them to look away, as though _they_ were the ones being looked at, had pinned him to his seat and made his breath catch in his throat.

Afterward, he clocked the cafe where most of the showgirls and stagehands were congregating. As he crossed the street, he again got the creeping feeling that someone was looking at him from somewhere he couldn’t see. He stopped outside of the cafe and made made a show of looking at his watch as his wary eyes raked the surroundings.

Nothing. Which was usually a bad sign, because _nothing_ usually meant _something_ and _something_ usually meant a fight. Still. That was a problem for later. He pushed the door open and made his way into the raucous clatter of the cafe.  

He ordered himself a coffee and then scouted the wildlife from a slight remove. There was the pair of acrobats, looking shockingly ordinary as they joked over their dinner. And there were a clutch of stagehands, leaning their brawny, tattooed arms onto the counter to look at a newspaper. He was pretty sure that the tired-looking woman feeding bites of toast to her dog had been wearing a spangled bustier and jewelled headdress less than an hour ago. And there...there she was, in the back of the room, contemplating her coffee spoon, with her dark bobbed hair falling across her face.

Dean stood up a little taller, took a sip of coffee, and sauntered over.

“Pardon me, miss,” he said, touching the brim of his cap like a good and proper gentleman, “I've gotta say, that was a hell of a show you put on.”

She set the spoon down on the table and looked up at him. Her eyes were dark blue, and still smudged with remnants of spit-black. “Thanks,” she said in a careful, neutral voice that told Dean she'd started this particular conversation more than a few times before.

“Everyone was great, of course,” Dean added, “But I liked the...artistry of your set.”

Now she smiled at him, a brief, amused thing. “The artistry of my set, hm?”

“Yeah, I—”

He was cut off mid-sentence by the pert voice behind him saying, “Excuse me, mister.”

He started, looking sharply over his shoulder.

“Oh, sorry,” he said, stepping out of the way of the waitress as she brought over a silver tray piled high with hashed steak and potatoes.

Her bright red hair—two redheads in the same day, what were the odds—was pulled back into a chignon under a white lace cap. She gently laid the plate on the table in front of the other woman and flashed a bright smile. “There you are, miss.” She looked back at Dean for a second. “And this gentleman is right—your set is _very_ artistic. I saw it yesterday.”

“Oh!” Then, more slowly. “Oh. Well, thank you very kindly. It’s nice to have admirers.” She didn’t seem to be including Dean in this club much at all, he noticed.

“Well, there’s plenty to admire! Now,” the waitress continued, clasping her hands behind her back. “Will that be all for you? Or would you like anything? Another coffee, maybe? Or...anything else?” She paused. “Anything at all.”

Now both Dean and the woman were watching her, with similar realizations dawning in their eyes.

“Oh,” she said again, with a pale pink flush inching up her neck. “This is absolutely fine for now, thank you. But, I...I may want something more, later. I tend to work up quite an appetite.”

 _I’ll be damned_ , Dean thought.

The waitress winked, and Dean was going to have to get pointers from her, because the look she was giving now had the other woman touching her throat and looking up through her lashes. “Well. Anything you want, just ask for Charlie.”

“I certainly will. ”

As Charlie turned away, she and Dean shared a look and he gave her an impressed little nod. “Sorry,” she whispered, as she passed, not sounding remotely sorry at all.

Dean let out a quiet laugh and gave her a quick salute. He smiled at the woman at the table, who seemed, suddenly, distracted. She caught him looking and seemed to draw herself back a little, probably expecting him to continue his advance.

“Anyway, miss. I just wanted to share my regards.” He inclined his head a fraction in the direction that Charlie had gone. “You have a, uh, a good evening.”

She blinked, unable to hide the flicker of surprise. “Why...why thank you.” She grinned at him, genuine this time. “I will. I hope you will, too.”

Dean made a chagrined shape with his mouth, but managed to sound convincingly cocky when he replied. “Always.”

He found an empty table in the corner, with one leg propped up by a match book and still bearing the crumbs of another person's meal, and sat, looking out the window at the lamp-lighters as they worked. His coffee had gone cold, but he never was one to let things go to waste, so he grimaced and drank it all.

He wasn't long settled, though, before someone came to him and set a silver coffee pot on the table. He glanced up. It was Charlie, the waitress.

“What's this? Consolation prize?” But he made sure his tone was friendly as he said it. When it came to flirting, he wasn't a usually sore loser.

She snorted, an unladylike sound. “Hardly.” She poured him out another cup full, and then left the coffee pot there. As she did, she looked to Dean's left. “At least, it's not a consolation prize from me.”

Dean followed the direction of her eyes. Another woman was watching the scene unfold with interest. She had a sly little mouth and blonde hair piled high on her head.

“Ah,” Dean said. He raised his cup in thanks.

She patted his shoulder. “Go get 'em, tiger.”

Dean stood again, and made his way back to the counter, where his benefactor was standing, looking coy under her hat. “I noticed you seem to be in want of a seat,” Dean said, ignoring the recently vacated table behind her.

“Why yes,” she agreed, also ignoring it. “I've been on my feet all day. Have you got one spare?”

“Yes, though...the table's small. It might be a little cramped.” They'd already begun walking.

“Oh, I don't mind. I'm familiar with tight spaces.”

“That's a relief. And besides,” he said, as they sat down. “I wanted to thank you for the refill.”

“Hmm. My pleasure.” She leaned forward, so that she was speaking directly into his ear. “Pretty as you are, you're not Maude's type, I'm afraid.”

“I gathered. You know her?”

“I'm her costumer. Well, hers and most of the girls'.” She shook her head.“Never mind Maude,” the woman said, briskly. She ran the edge of her finger along Dean's thumb. “You're _my_ type.”

“And what's your name?”

She laughed at that for some reason, a throaty sound. “Why, you can call me Maureen. What about you, beautiful?”

“You can call me—” He briefly thought about telling the truth—he _wanted_ to tell the truth, but the thought made him tired for some reason. “You can call me Donnie.” Wait, what the _fuck_ . Why did he give that name, of all names? _What the hell's wrong with you, Winchester?_

But she didn't seem to notice his crisis.

“Well, Donnie,” she said, sitting back, suddenly demure—except, that was, for the glint in her eye. “I have the keys to stage door and dressing rooms, the theater's empty for the next three hours, and...” She lowered her voice again, “this is a quick-change dress. I made it myself. It can be removed in under thirty seconds.”

Dean choked a little on his coffee. “That's...” He coughed. “That's impressive.”

“Mm-hm.” She took a sip of her own coffee. “So...”

“So what's to say you haven't forgotten something in the theater?”

She raised her eyebrows and nodded. “Oh, bother,” she exclaimed, in the kind of voice that showed she'd learned a few tricks from the show girls. “I think I've forgotten my hat-pin.”

“Well, you best go get it.”

“I'm _very_ forgetful.” She stood and adjusted her hat, quickly removing the amber pin that held it in place. “It may take me quite a while to find it.” She stepped out the door in a rustle of muslin and calico and walked across the street with quick, determined steps.

“Good luck!” Dean called after her.

He made sure people saw him  finishing his coffee, before he stood and made a more measured exit. Probably they were all still looking at him, but he didn't much care. Charlie, though, caught his eye on the way out the door and gave him a thumbs-up. He tipped his cap and stepped out into the dark.

**

Maureen hadn't lied about the spectacular qualities of her dress. It formed a green-and-blue striped pool on the floor of the dressing room, which still smelled of greasepaint and cigarettes. His blazer hung haphazardly on a spare hanger, weighed down on one side by the gun in the pocket.

She perched on the edge of the vanity table and wrapped her legs around him, upending a powder puff and wig, which caused her to laugh again.

“Did you,” Dean asked, between kissing her freckled shoulders, “ever find what you were looking for?”

“Mm, no. I think it may be a lost cause.”

“Maybe you need someone to help you look.” He ran his hands down her sides, gripping her legs and coaxing them open a little more, until she unhooked her ankles. He stroked his thumb between her thighs until his fingertip was wet. She shivered and let her head fall back, making a pleased sound. “Hmm,” Dean said. “Nothing.”

“Maybe,” she panted, “you need to look a little harder.”

“Oh?” He kept his thumb where it was and worked a finger inside of her. “Like that?”

She squealed. Then she leaned forward and bit at his neck, and he instantly thought _vampire_. He grabbed her throat to push her away. “Wh—” she gasped, grabbing his hand where it clamped like iron, revealing perfectly normal teeth. Oh god. He let go and stepped away from her, straining in the dim light to see if he'd left any marks.

“Sorry,” he stammered. “Sorry, sorry, I...”

She put her own hand where his had been, swallowing. “I—I'm not into that sort of thing.”

“I—sorry.” His arousal was dying more quickly than a candle under a bell-jar.

She regained her breath and looked at him steadily, suddenly cold as marble. “Don't do it again or I'll stab you.”

He shook his head, cautious. “I won't.”

Her sly look returned. “Good,” she said. “But if you want, I could...” She dipped her head and looked up at him, coy as anything. “I could do that for you.”

Dean's heart thudded, and he felt the heat rising up in his blood again. It had been...a while since he'd let himself be thrown around. Donnie was accommodating, and he probably would; but Dean was always so conscious of Donnie's wounds and how they hurt him that Dean never felt comfortable asking for more than a shove up against the wall.

“Yeah,” he said, quieter than intended. Then, more assuredly: “Yeah, that'd be good. Come on.”

“Okay, gorgeous. But first, I need you to tell me: I ain't ready to be a mother, so what're you gonna do about it?”

“What? I...oh. Oh! Wait.” He fumbled in his pocket for his bill-fold and withdrew the little glassine envelope he carried in case of emergencies. He’d learned _that_ lesson a long time ago. “Here.”

“Perfect. Put it on.” She stood. She still wore her stockings and shoes, which Dean found intensely seductive, for some reason.

He undid his belt and unrolled the lambskin with practised hands. As he slid it on, he looked over at her, waiting for further instructions.

“Sit,” she said, pointing to a chair, and he did. She held a jar of surgical jelly—god knows what they used it for, in the theatrical world, Dean thought, before he remembered that they probably used it for this—and she took her time applying it, batting his hand out of the way when he tried to help.

“Sorry,” he said, yet again, though this time he meant it in a different way. He grabbed hold of a chair leg in each hand, so that he wouldn't be tempted to reach up again. “Be sure to slap me if I do it again.”

“Be quiet.” And with that, she settled onto his lap in a slow, steady glide that made him screw his eyes shut. One hand drifted to his shoulder, right where his scar was, and he went very still. He felt a frisson of disappointment when he realized that her hand was too small to match the mark there, which made no sense at all. Her other hand, little as it was, closed around his throat, and for an instant he took in the feeling of her warm skin, the roughened places where she'd been pricked by a lifetime of needles and pins. Then she tightened her hold, and he saw stars.

* * *

Dean washed his face in the sink, eyeing a row of pink stockings that hung limply over a rail as they dripped dry. His cheeks burned from where she'd struck him, and his throat felt raw. It had been, all things considered, a pretty successful evening.

“Are you going to be in town much longer, Don?” Maureen asked, flicking the ash of her cigarette into an ashtray.

“Just passing through, I'm afraid,” Dean said, as he dried his hands. He wanted to stop her, to give her his name, like he used to do when he was younger, but—no. It didn’t seem right, somehow.

“Oh well,” she said, stretching her arms over her head. She sank down into the chair that Dean had been sitting on, and it creaked loudly, as though complaining. “No time for romance in show business.”

“Well, I...if I'm in town again I could, uh, call on you.” As soon as he said it, he knew he didn't actually want to.

“You do that, sugar.” She looked at him appreciatively. “I'll see that you behave yourself.” She stubbed out her cigarette and picked up a bottle of perfume, spraying her breasts with it. “Here,” she said, walking over to Dean, “you need this.”

“Ah, no thanks,” he said, looking at the bottle warily. “Rose isn't really my scent.”

“Suit yourself.” She picked her dress up from the floor and stepped into it, and turned around so that her back was to him. “Do me up?”

“Didn’t I just do that?”

“Oh hush, I mean, do my dress up, would you?”

He looked at the long line of metal teeth and the little tab, resting just at the base of her spine, and then carefully pulled it upwards, watching the two sides of the dress cleave together. “Say, that's pretty clever.”

“Thanks. My cousin invented it. Give it ten years and it'll be everywhere.”

He pulled the fastener down again. “Hm.”

“You're incorrigible, Don.”

“No, I—”

Just then the dressing room door burst open and a blur of bodies and light spilled into the room. Dean pulled Maureen behind him instinctively. Someone let out a surprised yelp and then everyone seemed to talk at once.

“Mo?”

“ _Maude?_ ”

“Charlie?”

“Uh...whatever your name is?”

“It's uh...” But he was cut off before he had to lie.

“Maureen, what the _hell_?” Maude asked, covering up her shoulder.

“What do you mean _what the hell_ ? What the hell are _you_ doing?”

“Same thing as you, looks like.”

“I didn't realize she'd finish her shift so soon!”

“Oh, Maureen, you _know_ you have no concept of time. Anyway, I need this room now so...”

“I was just, uh...I was just leaving,” Dean mumbled as he grabbed his blazer and wrestled it on. Neither Maude or Maureen seemed to pay him any mind, but Charlie grabbed his arm as he passed.

“Nice.”

“Same to you.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “The name's Dean, by the way. But uh.” He pressed his finger to his lips.

“Ah,” Charlie said, knowingly. “I've been there.”

“Have a good night,” Dean said, as he made a hasty retreat.

Back on the street, Dean tried to catch his breath. He walked a few steps toward the main road, and then stopped. The streets were completely empty in the yellow lamplight, except for a lone figure standing on the corner. He squinted at it, and pressed up against the side of the building. He made his way carefully along, keeping his eyes fixed on it until it revealed itself.

He stepped out of the shadows. “You again?”

The newsboy from before looked at him with wide, blue eyes, and bit his lip, and Dean got a strange crawling sensation across his skin.

“I've been waiting for you.”

“Waiting for me—now hold on,” Dean said, panicked. “Kid, you are...you're what, twelve? Y-you are not my type. At all. You shouldn't be anybody's type. You should be in school!”

“It's eleven p.m.”

“I, okay, fine, but—don't you have somewhere to go?”

“And I'm fifteen,” the boy said, sounding irritated.

“That's not—”

“I need to talk to you.”

Dean stopped spluttering and narrowed his eyes. “About what?”

The boy looked around and stepped into the alley from where Dean had just come.

“Hey, wait.”

Then he was taking off his cap and letting down a cascade of long blonde hair and Dean realized—

“You're one of the trainee nurses. From Saint Dymphna's. Amy? Amalie?”

“Amelia,” she said, tartly. “And that's what _they_ think. My name's Claire.” Then, quietly, as though she didn't quite mean to say it: “Amelia was my mom's name.” She tilted her chin up. “I need to talk to you about Anna Milton.”

“Oh.” He shifted from foot to foot, uneasy. “So, what—we probably shouldn't be talking out here.”

She looked at him with the kind of withering contempt that only a girl of her age could manage. “Great idea.”

He dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. _Jesus Christ_. “My hotel's ten minutes away.”

“The Astoria,” she said. “I know.”

“How—you know what, tell me when we get there.” He was going to disregard the sting of being successfully tailed by a child, because he clearly needed some tips from her, too. Now he just needed to walk through downtown Pontiac with said child in the middle of the night without looking like a complete pervert. Just a completely normal evening.

Claire fixed her hair back under her cap and stuck her hands in her pockets. “I hope you have gin.”

“You—What? No. No gin until you're sixteen,” Dean snapped. “You'll just have to drink beer.”

“Fine,” she said, slouching along next to him.

When they finally arrived, after what seemed like several more miles than before, he shooed her into the room. “No shoes on the bed,” he said, handing her one of the beers from the grocery bag. “Now, talk.”

She rolled her eyes and took a swig from the bottle. It was room temperature, but she didn't seem to care. “My mother was in Saint Dympna's for over a year. Can you guess why?”

“Uh...she was crazy?” Claire scowled at him and he held up his hands. “Hey. We're all mad here.”

She looked mildly surprised, either at the reference or the lack of argument, but shook her head. “She wasn't, actually. Or, I suppose she was, after my dad went away.”

“Went away?”

“Was taken away.”

“Kidnapped?”

She took another drink, longer this time, and shook her head again. “Possessed.”

“Oh, damn. Sorry, kid. Demons are bastards.”

“Demons?” She sounded confused. “It wasn't demons.”

“What, a ghost?”

“I...what? No. It was angels. Well, _an_ angel.”

“Not this shit again.”

“Shut the hell up,” she said, getting to her feet. “I lost _everything._ And you know what makes it worse? My parents both _chose_ it.”

Dean's brows drew together. “That's not how possession works.”

“Wha—are you serious? Aren't you supposed to be some kind of bigtime hunter? That's the _only_ way angelic possession works. Ask me how I know.”

For some reason, Dean opted not to. Something about the look in her eyes made him shaky.

“Alright, alright. So, angelic possession. Fine. You're saying some jerk with a white dress and harp hitched a ride with your dad and that drove your mom around the bend?”

“This is a waste of time,” she spat. “Tell me what Anna Milton said.”

“Anna Milton?” He took a deep breath, trying to recalibrate. “Something about...angels coming to get her. Said she killed a couple.”

Claire sat down again. “Did she—did she mention any of their names? Or any names at all?”

“No. Why?”

“My dad—his name was Jimmy. He disappeared three years ago.” She stopped, as though counting out the hours. “Almost three years ago, I mean to say. Before that he heard voices.”

“He heard voices.”

“In the phonograph.”

Dean nearly dropped the beer bottle. “What?”

She nodded, lost in thought, not noticing how the blood had drained from Dean's face. “A voice in the phonograph, telling him to perform acts of faith.”

“Wh—what kind of acts of faith?”

“Sticking his arm in boiling water, that was one.” She looked at the ceiling. Her voice was remarkably blasé. “Uh, another was...I think he had to drive a nail through his hand? It's hard to remember. My mom was absolutely livid. They screamed at each other a lot.”

“I bet,” Dean said, weakly.

“Funny thing was, he was never hurt by any of it.” She finished her beer. “That's when he started having the dreams. And then after the dreams, that's when the angel came.”

“And these, uh, dreams. What was in them?”

Claire looked at him sharply. “Angels, obviously.”

“Obviously. And so your mom...”

“She was fine, for a little while. Then...well, then I don't remember. I got sick, and the next thing I knew I was sent to stay with my grandmother, and she was in Saint Dymphna's.”

“That's rough.”

“No shit.”

“So why isn't she there now? Where'd she go?”

“She escaped,” Claire said, sounding proud.

“To come get you?”

She flinched a little, but tried  to hide it.“No, not...not exactly. I saw her one time. Uh, she...she climbed up to my bedroom window. Told me she was going to find my dad so that we could be together again. Made me promise to ward myself and stop saying my prayers.” She laughed, sounding much older than her years. “That was two years ago.”

“Won't your grandmother be worried about you?”

“Maybe,” Claire said, grabbing the beer out of his hands. “But there's not much she can do about it, seeing as she's dead.”

“Oh,” Dean said. “I'm sorry.”

“People die.”

“Still...”

“So, they sent me to some boarding school for quote-unquote troubled girs, and I got thrown in solitary for setting things on fire.”

“But you got out.”

“I take after my mom, I guess.” She smirked, though it didn't look like she meant it. “Plus they were dumbasses.” She finished the second beer. “Okay, I talked. Now it's your turn, hunter.”

“Dean,” he said. “Dean Winchester.”

“Huh,” she said, sounding faintly surprised.

“Huh?”

“What else did Anna Milton say?”

He exhaled. “I don't know, she was in and out of reality. Something about...wings of glory?”

“And a burning wheel?”

“How'd you know? Did she talk to you, too?”

“No, I hadn't been trained on that ward yet.” She cleared her throat, and for the first time seemed hesitant. “The uh, the doctor. He had some papers. Some of my mom's old files. I found them in the basement, but there was something missing.”

“What do you mean?”

“I, uh...when I was younger. Before my dad left, I mean. I had some weird dreams, too. I drew a picture of one of them. Apparently she had it with her when the doctors came to take her away. But it wasn't in her file.”

“What was in the picture?” Dean asked, tense like a dog on a scent.

“What do you think?”

“Let me guess,” Dean said, pulling the two drawings out from John's journal. “A wheel of flaming wings, lots of spooky eyes?” He held one up.

“That's mine.” She stood again, lunging for it.

He snatched it out of the way. “Nope, sorry. It's part of an ongoing investigation, now.”

“I said it's _mine_ . It's part of _my_ investigation.”

“Your investigation?” He heard himself sneering, which Sam said he only did when he felt threatened. (A lie: Dean did plenty of other things when he felt threatened. Stupid things, usually, but at least there was _variety_.) “What are you gonna do with it, Sherlock?”

“I'm going to find my mother.” She was crying now, hot, angry tears.

Dean deflated. “Oh,” he said, more softly. “Um.” He put the drawing down. “Listen, uh, Claire. I can't..I can't let you have it, okay? I'm sorry, but I just can't. But... but I know someone who could help you. And I have...I know lots of other people, who could, maybe, look for your mother.”

“They won't know what they're looking for. She's _my_ family, and this is _my_ job.”

“You're just a kid. Your job is to be a kid.” He shook his head. “I can't let you. I'm sorry.”

“Right,” she said, suddenly and horribly calm, like the center of a storm. “Right.” She wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “Who's this special helpful person you're talking about?”

“Her name's Jody, and she looks after, uh, other girls who've..had a rough time. Supernaturally.”

“I'm not going to another goddamn reformatory.”

“No, it's...that's not what it is. That's not what it's like...It's. It's a good place, I swear. You'd have friends there, who'd understand you. Will you at least let me give you the address?”

She stared at him, long and hard, then smiled. “That sounds just fine.”

Dean let out a relieved breath. He knelt down, to rummage through his bag.

An instant later, felt a sharp, blinding pain across the back of his skull, and then the world went dark.

When he woke again, it was morning, and he was sprawled face down on the floor, with the remnants of a broken beer bottle next to him. “Son of a bitch.” He sat up, and was immediately hammered by the pain in the back of his head. “Son of a _bitch._ ”

He clung to the bed to haul himself up. John's journal was open, and the two drawings were nowhere to be seen. His bill-fold was on the table, and he knew without looking that it was empty.

He flopped onto the bed and waited for the world to stop spinning. “I have got to get the fuck out of Illinois,” he said.

He limped home from Pontiac, licking his wounds, and wouldn't talk to Bobby for an entire day, citing a cold. It was another before he came clean about what happened. Bobby swore at him in several languages for a few minutes and then, once he'd gotten it out of his system, sighed and said: “I'll hit the books. You better write to Sam, too, see what he can dig up in that big library out in California.”

“You don't actually think it's _angels_ do you?”

“Why not?”

“Maybe because there's no such thing?”

Bobby looked at him with a long, emotionless stare,and went into his study. “Boy, you really are a damn idjit sometimes.”

 _Ain't that the truth,_ Dean thought, dropping his head onto his arms as he sat at the kitchen table. _But still, one of these days, I'm bound to catch a break._

Four weeks later, they got the news: Dean Winchester was going to war.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warnings:** brief BDSM including breath play
> 
>  
> 
> Here endeth Part One. Part Two picks up on the Western Front, where Dean finally meets the one who's been troubling him this whole time and reunites with Sam in a way that he wasn't quite expecting. I'll start posting that in September. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	5. I Don't Know Where I'm Going but I'm on my Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Dean arrives in sunny France and has a hell of a time._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> American troops were often attached to British or French units, especially at the beginning of US involvement, and particularly those that dealt with building and engineering. I'm not a military expert, but I hope what I've researched and included makes sense. 
> 
> Additional warnings in the end notes, if you need them.

 

>   _Move him into the sun—_
> 
>   _Gently its touch awoke him once,_
> 
>  
> 
> _At home, whispering of fields half-sown._
> 
> _Always it woke him, even in France,_
> 
> _Until this morning and this snow._
> 
> _If anything might rouse him now_
> 
> _The kind old sun will know._
> 
>  
> 
> _Think how it wakes the seeds—_
> 
> _Woke once the clays of a cold star._
> 
> _Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides_
> 
> _Full-nerved, still warm, too hard to stir?_
> 
> _Was it for this the clay grew tall?_
> 
> _—O what made fatuous sunbeams toil_
> 
> _To break earth's sleep at all?_
> 
> -Wilfred Owen, **Futility**
> 
>  

* * *

 

**Part Two: 1918**

The trip from Fort Riley to France had been plagued by setbacks. Some of them were literal plagues; almost two dozen men in Dean’s intake group had been taken to Camp Funston with some kind of virulent ‘flu in August, and then seemed to disappear. On this, the doctors remained stone-faced and tight-lipped and Dean could do little more than speculate.

Some were more mundane: from food poisoning to fist-fights to a broken-down boxcar on the way to New York that set them back three days. (This last one was hilarious to the Doughboys and infuriating to the brass, and Dean just smiled as he clambered under the carriage. It made a nice change from digging trenches in the Kansas dust, at least.)

In Ohio, they passed a sleepy town at dusk, and Dean saw a dark-haired girl in a red coat, shining like a beacon. For an instant, their eyes locked and he was taken by the startling blue of them. His half-dreaming mind imagined jumping off the train to join her, to forget this whole madness, and other madnesses besides, to leave the world to itself. Then the train pressed on eastward, and she disappeared.

But they’d crossed over, in the end. They had a few days of fried oysters and cheap liquor in New York, where Dean watched a passel of tan-faced prairie boys go green at the gills at the first burst of city life, grabbing at it all with their sunburned fists as though they’d never get a taste again. (They probably wouldn’t.) This, too, was familiar. He’d spent the year before his deal came due in much the same state.

Dean remembered his first time in New York. Barely sixteen and pretty as any girl, stealing away to the Haymarket to see the can-can dancers. He’d been dizzy with it all—the color, the perfume, the lights, the music—and then, later, dizzy from the cigarettes he’d been given. Hashish, he’d found out, much later. Dad found him and dragged him back to the boarding house before anything could happen to him, and Dean spent the next two days feeling so wretched that John didn’t even bother to tan his hide.

Now, after many long seasick days, he’d traded the russet autumn haze of Manhattan, Kansas, and the strident, exciting fog of Manhattan, New York for the dull grey mud of Milieu-de-Fucking-Rien, France. God damn it, he didn’t even get to see the Eiffel Tower so he could decide for himself if it was as ugly as Bobby said. But in the midst of the brothels and the swamp of Saint-Nazaire,  there’d been coffee, and even wine, and roasted squab, and Dean had eaten his fill; and then he’d lain on his bunk listening to the fitful breathing of the other men around him, and wondered what they’d be called to do.

Mostly, what they did was wait, and then trudge, and then wait some more. First they waited in a village tavern for their marching orders, where pale girls watched them without any heat, the way they might watch cattle going to market. So many carried small, scrawny children at their hip; Dean never could tell if they were mothers, or sisters, or simply someone who’d found a crying child and never put them down again.  

After that, they moved toward the front. They could still walk, then—march, even—and the ground was still the ground, more or less, still something solid underfoot. But as they made their way towards the front line, the company's pace slowed while the sound of shelling grew louder, as though the earth itself was trying to keep them away. The air seemed to grow solid with it, a wall of noise that built itself up around them as they moved.  

First the grass disappeared, and frostbitten and brittle as it was, Dean was sorry to see it go. Next, the cold clay gave way to ordinary mud, the kind you might find in any winter cow field. Then it turned to sludge, squelching over the toes of their boots, and then the ankles, with a wet, sucking sound like a punctured lung. More than one man lost a boot to it.

By the second day of walking, the countryside dissolved into a grey and churning sea. Twice they had to stop to repair the wooden walkway that kept them from drowning.

“There’s men down there,” one of his bunkmates—Alfie, who didn’t look old enough to shave, let alone carry a bayonet—whispered to Dean as they pried up a rotting board. Sometimes, he jerked awake at night in the bivouac, and stared at the blank world with panic on his brow. Sometimes, he turned to Dean and said, in a ghost’s voice: “Does the noise ever stop?” and Dean would have to mutter something comforting and false.

In the morning, Alfie was always smiling, and the noise never did stop.

“Men down _where_ ,” Dean asked, cursing his numb fingers and the mist that seeped into every fiber of his clothes. He hadn’t seen the sun in days.”Shit!” A splinter caught in the pad of his thumb, and he sucked it out, wincing. If he got gangrene from a goddamn splinter he was going to march straight to Berlin and stab the Kaiser in the eye with his own _pickelhelm_. Dean’s thumb sprouted fresh blood. Just a few drops, poppy-red, but it felt like all the color had leached away from the world, and the sight of it startled him. He almost wished for more of it.

Alfie watched him with interest. Yet again, Dean had to resist the urge to ask him if he really was eighteen, or if he’d lied on his enlistment papers. “This was a trench,” Alfie said, gesturing to the empty pit around them. “You can tell by the support struts sticking up over there.” He pointed into the curling mist, and Dean looked, and he saw—he’d mistaken them for trees, initially. There were whole forests sunk out here, jutting up like blackened knuckles through the mire, or were upended, with the dark webs of their roots picked clean by the sky. But no, these were different, more uniform, cut by hand. Now that he saw it, he couldn’t unsee it.

“Oh.” Dean said, feeling more seasick than he ever had on the journey over.

“I wonder how many.” Alfie threw the water-logged board into the mud, where it sank.

But they didn’t have time to wonder, for the Field Marshall's voice cut through the rain and called them back to their ranks.

And they walked on, over the dead, toward the sound.

* * *

And now it was January. Dean was thirty-one, and Alfie was dead. Dean had taken his gloves, with the loose threads where Alfie had pulled at them while he slept. Dean rubbed his fingertip over one of them now, as he turned the letter from Sam and the brown-paper parcel from Bobby over in his hands, knowing that he was supposed to open them but not sure why.

Eventually, he undid the twine and ran his boot knife along the paper, slicing it open.

More letters, in plump white envelopes, tied with bright string. Tinned—Dean blinked, forgetting and then remembering what fruit was—tinned apples. Canned ham. Cigarettes, with a smiling blonde woman looking buxomly theatrical on the package. Socks of green wool. These were wrapped around a tobacco tin full of goofer dust, which Dean mixed with gunpowder to fill his shell casings. And—oh god—a bar of chocolate.

Dean stared at it, unsure of what to make of it all, just as he was unsure of why there was birdsong as well as shelling outside his window, why, in fact there was a window at all, and not a trembling wall of mud, why there was a rug under his feet and not black water around his knees.  He turned his attention to the first letter, looking at the familiar way Sam’s handwriting slanted in the weak winter sun. He found it opened in his hands, wondering who’d put it there, before realizing that he’d done it, and the envelope was in tatters on the floor.

 _Dear brother,_ it began, like all the others. Dean read the line a few more times, ran his broken thumbnail over it, and felt something reconnect, like a severed nerve sending out its first pale shoot.

Dean looked the words _birthday wishes_ blankly, before the meaning landed. He glanced at the calendar pinned to the wall. Alfie had been dead for four days, and he’d been on leave for three. That made today...that made today his birthday, and that made tomorrow the day that he returned to the front lines. His ears had only just stopped ringing.

Sam’s letter was unusually terse, despite the gentleness of its opening lines. It barely covered a page. It told him to hang on, that there was still work they had to do, that he would see Dean soon.

“You’d think that dumb punk was coming to France himself, talking that way.” The sound of his own voice, hoarse from gas, startled him. He hadn’t spoken to anyone in at least a day.

But that was impossible. Sam was in his second year of seminary, delivering the Good News out in sunny California; or, more likely, with his nose in a book, peppering Bobby with pieces of lore he’d gleaned from their depths, completely oblivious to the fine weather. He’d been stuck on angels for the better part of a year now and Dean wished he’d never mentioned it. He’d even gotten another of the students, some poor sap named Kevin, in on the deal.

The kid needed to find himself a girl. Dean was pretty sure Sam was still allowed to do that. This whole Man-of-God thing had been a way to distract himself from Jessica, a way to try and absolve himself of the guilt of breaking their engagement, and keep the demons—literal and figurative—away.

Thinking about Sam made him feel better, even when it hurt, even when it reminded Dean of the times Sam had walked away from him before. He was right to walk away. Death followed everywhere Dean went.

He sat on the bed and read the rest of the letters in a less morose mood, aided in large part by the bar of chocolate, which he broke into small pieces and let melt against his tongue. The socks were knitted, to his surprise, by Missouri’s granddaughter. About Missouri herself, Bobby wouldn’t say anything except that it was a complicated situation, and Dean had to grit his teeth and pretend not to feel helpless. The cigarettes were from Jody, for the purpose, she said, of making friends. The rest was from Bobby. His letter was the shortest of all, reading only: _Stay alive and don’t get scurvy or any other fancy disease. Your room’s waiting for you when you get back. I’ll even let you sleep late for a day or two. PS: Happy birthday, son._

Dean’s face and neck grew hot, and the heat welled up behind his eyes. He set each of the gifts aside and wiped them with the back of his sleeve.

A knock startled Dean from his thoughts, and he sprang to attention. But it was just the landlady at his door, calling him to breakfast. She was quiet and pale and unremarkable, except for the fact that she had very nice teeth. But then, she probably got paid handsomely to billet soldiers, so maybe that was the reason.

“Thank you, Céleste,” he said, still unsure if he’d said it right. Maybe by the end of the war he’d get it. If there ever was an end to it.

She mumbled something in French and stepped back into the hall.

“Wait,” Dean said, picking up the chocolate bar. “I mean, um. Attend? No. _Attendez_.”

He saw the shine of her eye through the crack in the door, but she didn’t step back in the room. “Oui, monsieur?”

“Uh.” He broke off a piece of chocolate and held it out, tentative, like he would to a spooked animal. “Here. Chocolate.”

She finally stepped around the door. There was a bright and playful look in her eye that Dean found almost familiar, and he wished that he spoke...any French at all really, beyond that one bawdy song that John used to sing when he was drunk.

Céleste raised an eyebrow at him and crossed her arms. “Et monsieur voudra des bisous, je parie, ou peut-être une baise.”

“I...what?”

“Si seulement monsieur le savait!” She bit down on her lip, and Dean swore she was trying not to laugh at him.

“I’m sorry, I don’t... _parlay_? Listen, do you want the chocolate or not? It’s melting on my hand.”

And, dragonfly-quick, she snatched the square of chocolate from his palm and darted away, down the hallway. “Merci, monsieur!” The sound of her laughter drowned out the shelling, just for a moment, and Dean was glad it was his birthday.

Breakfast was yesterday’s bread covered in an egg (a real one, not the powdered stuff that had only the vaguest recollection of ever being near a chicken) and fried. At the sight of it, Dean ran back to his room and grabbed the tinned apples. Her eyes widened when she saw it, and she jumped up and down on the spot in anticipation, before producing a short, sharp knife from her apron belt and cutting open the tin.

“Uh, wow,” Dean said. “That was...efficient.”

She smiled at him, but didn’t say anything as she added the apples to the skillet.

“Oh right, pas de anglais.”

“Et voilà,” Céleste said, serving up a battered enamel plate piled high with crispy toast and fried apples.

She grinned around the first mouthful, and Dean suddenly reconsidered his opinion that she was unremarkable.

They ate in pleasant silence, with only the occasional _pop_ of the log in the stove. When they’d finished, at last, after lingering over the final traces of apple on their plates, Dean whistled appreciatively and said, “That was, uh. Très...bueno. I mean. Bien? Très bien.” He collected the plates and took them to the sink, finding comfort in the familiar actions. The soap was hard and yellowish, probably made from beef tallow, meant to last a long time rather than to be kind. He shaved off a few flakes of it and poured some of the leftover water from the kettle into the sink. She made a surprised noise, but didn’t try to stop him, and he felt a pang of guilt that he’d spent the last few days letting her do all the kitchen-work. Well, he’d make up for that now.

He took her apron from its peg and tied it around his own waist, listening to her laugh again, and launched into a rendition of “Buffalo Gals” that would have made Sam cringe, even without the gas-laced gravel in his throat. But she didn’t appear to mind, because she was smiling at him whenever he looked over his shoulder at her.

When the last of the water had drained, Dean wiped his hands on the apron-front and said, without turning around: “I really hope you see the back of this war, kid. You seem like you have a good life ahead of you.”

There was the sound of coughing behind him, and he turned to see Céleste covering her face with her hands.

“Are you okay?” He took an involuntary step toward her, before he stopped himself.

“Excusez-moi.” She got up from the table, wiping her eyes with the edge of the starched white veil that covered her hair, and retreated down the hall.

He’d said something wrong. Except that it wasn’t possible, because she didn’t speak any English. Maybe his singing really _had_ been that bad.

When it became clear that she wasn’t going to return to the kitchen any time soon, Dean made his way, awkwardly, back to his own room. Six men would be arriving as he left. It was a vanishingly rare luxury to have a whole room to oneself, let alone an entire cottage, and Dean tried to be grateful for it, rather than thinking about what it suggested about his superiors’ opinion of his state of mind. Part of him knew that he wasn’t keeping his Hell memories as quiet as he had been three months ago, and the only reason he wasn’t in a padded cell right now was probably because he had the highest kill-count of the entire Company. Of course, this was the only time and place on earth when no one would question where a trackman learned to be a sniper without, apparently, having set foot in a training school.

Even the drill sergeants at Camp Riley had looked at him uneasily from the corner of their eyes as they congratulated him after every successful maneuver. Probably he shouldn’t have held a knife to that kid’s throat as he knelt on his back. Probably shouldn't have knelt on his back, at all, really after disarming him. Or decapitated that straw dummy with his bayonet. ( _Or at the very least,_ he heard Sam's voice say, with a distinct vinegary note, _you could've_ _made it look a little more difficult,_ Dean).

“I’ll just, uh...” he called out into the empty hall. “Pack my things,” he finished, much more quietly.

But he lingered at the doorway to the room where he slept. It was certainly an improvement on the barns they’d slept in during the summer, bitten half-mad by flies, but it made him miss his own room, above the garage. It even made him miss sharing a bed with Sam, even though he’d always—without fail—end up with Sam’s arm across his face or Sam’s hair in his mouth when they woke up in the morning.

But none of that could last, not in this life, nor in the next.

He shook his head and walked to the window. He put his hand to the cold glass, watching the lace of frost melt in the shape of his palm, and looked out at the winter sky. Tomorrow he’d be back up to his knees in dirt and blood and bile, where he (he had always known, on some level), belonged.

Dean picked up his rifle. No harm in giving it one more clean. He sat on the bed, and listened to the birds calling out to one another.

* * *

Dean had met Ashley twice, while at the Harvelle’s roadhouse; Sam had corresponded with him numerous times over the years. He was, by most measures, one of the smartest people Dean had ever met, despite the fact that he couldn’t seem to comb his hair. Or wear pants, half the time.

Their reunion at the Front had been unexpected and joyful, with a depth of affection that Dean wasn’t prepared for. It was like seeing a flash of his old life, clear and sharp, a momentary breath of clean air in the smoke. They’d sat under a tarp, huddled together like bedraggled birds against the cold and damp, and eaten salted ham straight from the can. Dean had been saving it all month for a special occasion and, well, this was as special as it was probably going to get.

“Hey,” Ash asked, after Dean returned from his rounds, “you ever find your gun that got stole?”

“The Colt?” Dean asked, popping his neck. Christ. So much had happened since then. “Nah. Whoever took it covered their tracks too damn well.”

“Shit.” Ash said.“After all that strife and vexation I went through to help you boys find it. Well. At least you killed that yellow-eyed bastard first.”

“That we did,” Dean said, with a razor-wire smile. “That we did.”

Ash was stationed with a British unit. Putting his mathematics to good use, he explained, wryly, around a mouthful, by figuring out the trajectory of machine-gun fire for going ‘over the top’. “‘Course,” he said, closing his eyes. “They look at the numbers and they tell me it’s all, uh, _very fine work_ , and then they send ‘em up anyway.” He rested his head against the side of the trench, and tipped his helmet forward so it covered his face. “I still can’t believe how much blood a human body holds.”

“Mmm,” Dean said, to his knees. They didn’t talk for the rest of the night.

Sometime before dawn, when it was cold enough that Dean reached on instinct for the nearest warm body, he realized that Ash wasn’t bunked down next to him any more. His eyes shot open and he sat up, looking around. No sign of him. He crawled his way past the rows of sleeping men, lined up close as coffins, and out into the open.

Three figures stood silhouetted against the side of the parapet, steam streaming from their coats in the frigid February night. They talked in hushed and hurried tones and grew quiet as Dean drew near. He could see Ash’s lopsided helmet and skinny shoulders, but the other two were unknown to him.

“Private Winchester, you’re not needed on patrol for another two hours.” A foreign voice—British accent with a parade ground bark even when whispering. Part of Ash’s unit, maybe?

“Yes, sir,” Dean said, stopping short. “ I just...”

“But seeing as you’re here,” the obscure officer continued. “And seeing as Corporal Jenkins has apparently decided it was a convenient time to get septicemia, perhaps you’d like to assist my men with a little, ah, foray.”

“Foray, sir?”

“Reconnaissance mission, private. Intel. That’s short for ‘intelligence.’”

“Excuse me, Captain Taylor. Dean—that is to say, Private Winchester isn’t…”

“Quiet, Corporal. Now. You’re a sharpshooter, I hear.”

Dean’s hackles rose a fraction, but he held his tongue. “Yes, sir.”

“A man of many talents, then. The raiding party could use a third, especially one with your, ah, expertise.”

“With all due respect, sir,” Dean said, careful not to specify how much respect that actually entailed, “I would need permission from my own commanding officer.”

“Of course,” Captain Taylor said, dismissively. “Go ask Captain Shurley. But be quick about it. We’re already behind.”

Dean looked at Ash’s face, which he’d blackened with burnt cork, turning it into a sickly harlequin mask. For no reason at all, Dean thought of Sam on his first hunt, tall and skinny, shaking in every limb, but quiet and determined. Dean couldn’t get a read on him in the darkness, but the thought of letting him crawl flat-bellied across No Man’s Land without being there to support him was suddenly unbearable.

“I’ll be back in five minutes.”

In fact, it took much less time than that, because Captain Shurley’s response to Dean’s request amounted to little more than a gin-soaked shrug. “Permission granted,” he’d said, squinting up at Dean like he wasn’t sure what he was looking at. “Give ‘em. Uh. Give ‘em hell.”

“There’s plenty to go around out here.” And with that, Dean left.

* * *

It took over an hour for them to crawl through the wire and to the nearest enemy trench. There they stayed, scarcely daring to move or breathe, while they listened for sounds of life. Dean brought his hand to his mouth and nose, partially in an attempt to block out the smell, and partially to try and bring some warmth back to his fingers. Jesus Christ, he hated dirt.

The trench remained silent. Ash gestured for them to move forward, and they went to work cutting the wire. Once it was cleared away, they scaled the parapet like injured serpents, and slid into the the trench.

For half an hour, they pressed themselves against the walls, listening to the muffled sounds of talking, of metal-on-metal, of all the strangely intimate, customary sounds of men-at-arms. It was almost comforting.

“A howitzer. Fifteen centimeter.” Ash whispered into Dean’s ear. “To the left. They’re moving it.” Dean strained his hazy hearing to its limit and could almost pick up the sound Ash mentioned. He nodded, indicating that they should make their way back, since the sun would be up soon.

It was then they realized that the trench was not, in fact, deserted.

A soldier appeared from behind the next traverse and stopped, staring as though he’d seen a trio of ghosts. Dean saw him inhale sharply to raise the alarm, but two shots of a revolver made sure the alarm never came.

There was a pause, and then noise converged on them from both sides. They scaled the parapet again and forced their way through the wire. Dean almost didn’t notice the jagged bite of it as it tore through his pant leg and into his thigh.

Up ahead, there was a shell-hole, and the three of them dived for it just as the machine guns began to blaze. They hunched together as the bullets rained down, pockmarking the back of the crater. But they were too close to the trench for the gunfire to reach them where they were.

“We need,” Dean shouted, over the roar, “to split up. There are enough shell-holes between us and them. You, Spangler, go that way. Ash, that way. I’ll go straight on.”

“What good’ll that do?” Spangler asked, wide-eyed.

“Confuse their fire,” Ash yelled. “They won’t know who to focus on.”

“Damn right. I’m gonna count to three. And then I want you to run like the Devil’s after you. You got that?”

They did.

If pressed, Dean couldn’t recall what those first few steps in No Man’s Land were like. The entire world narrowed down to the width of a razor blade, and he pressed himself against it. Bullets whistled past his head and buried themselves in front of him. He made it to the next crater.

He made it to the next crater.

He was almost home free.

Dean peered cautiously above the lip of the shell-hole. No telling where Spangler was. Ash was somewhere to his right. Or at least he was a minute ago.

The gunfire paused, probably waiting for one of them to make their move. Dean steeled himself, and then…

And then he heard the growling.

Clots of dirt fell onto his helmet and shoulders, and he turned his head a much as he dared. There was nothing there.

The growling continued, and then the smell of brimstone sank into his nose.

A Hellhound. And it was hunting.

“Shit.” He slid his hand as slowly as he could stand into his pocket and withdrew the tin of goofer dust. He opened it, spilling some with his blood-slick hands, and silently cursed himself. But then, he gathered the mud up, forming it into a ball. He closed his eyes, counted to three again, and, just as the first hot, sulfurous flecks of drool landed on him, hurled it.

It struck home, spattering against the hound and causing an unearthly howl, louder than any bomb. The Hellhound retreated backwards, snarling.

“Ash! Spangler! Don’t move! Stay where you are! There’s...”

But Ash was already running, bent forward so that he was close to the ground. Seven feet to the next crater. Then five. Then one.

He jumped up, and was plucked out of the air by invisible jaws, before tumbling heavily into the hole.

“ _Fuck_.” Dean launched himself from his position and ran reckless through the killing field, toward the sound of the struggle. He unsheathed his boot knife and leaped down, directly onto the Hellhound’s back. Ash’s front was soaked through with blood. His helmet had fallen forward across his face, so that Dean couldn’t see his eyes.

Dean slashed once, twice, three times at the hound, causing another shriek, and it let go of Ash at last. It blood gushed black, coating its body, making it visible in the early morning light.

He’d forgotten just how big they were.

The hound rounded on him, tarry and bristling. His knife was consecrated—of course it was, he wasn’t an amateur—but Dean had lost a lot of blood in the last ten minutes, and the bitter cold was taking its toll on him. Not even a holy knife would do the job if he couldn’t move his body the way he needed to. He’d die in this pit.

 _So,_ Dean thought with grim satisfaction. _Guess I’ll die a hunter’s death after all. See, Dad? Once in a while, I can do something right._

He took a deep breath and staggered to his feet, teeth and knife bared. “Come on, you ugly bitch! Soup’s on!”

There was another howl, this one different than before, and then the world went white.

The air turned to fire around him. His lungs ignited and his first thought was _gas_. He was rising, rising up from the pit, writhing in the burning air. He lashed out uselessly with his blade.

Dean landed on his back, shaking and slavering like a sick dog, with blood pouring from his ears. Someone was helping him to his feet, and the very touch of their hand was like petrol on an open flame.

Dean stood, bloody and blind as a newborn baby, as the world came into focus. The air was a clean, blue globe around them, smelling of lightning and desert air, and before him stood a man. Dean took him in, top to toe, in a fraction of a second: dark hair, and square shoulders, an officer’s tan coat. But the eyes, they were...something else. They pierced him, held him still against his will, when all he wanted to do was attack.

 _That thing,_ Dean’s panicked brain supplied _, is not human_.

It smiled, just a fraction, almost like it had heard him.

“Hello, Dean,” it said, in an earth-scraping voice. “I’ll be seeing you again.”

Dean rushed forward, knife at the ready, and slid face-first into the side of his own trench. Whatever it was, it was gone.

And then it was March, and Ash was dead, and they sewed a Corporal’s stripes onto Dean’s uniform.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional warnings for minor character death (sorry, guys) and general trench warfare trauma.
> 
> Thanks so much to aerialiste for checking on the French translations! And apologies to my most excellent French teacher. 
> 
> The next chapter will post on....18th September. ;) After that, back to a Saturday schedule!
> 
> Thanks so much for reading.


	6. Till We Meet Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Dean meets his savior, and immediately shoots and stabs him._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is so late in the day, but I'm going to assume you were all busy reblogging quality September 18th content on social media.

Spring came, and with it, cannonades. Dean was sitting in a cafe in Amiens when he got the word. He hadn’t slept well for several nights; his head was stuffed full of so many thoughts that they came tumbling out in acid-sharp dreams that left him sweating and shaking until morning. Girls in red coats would glide past him, serene, before dissolving into pools of blood. Or Ash would tip the helmet back from his eyes and look at Dean sadly, and mouth something at him that he could never quite catch.

Pretty standard, as far as nightmare fodder went. The one that caught him out (every night, every night) was the image of that... _thing_ standing there in the middle of No Man’s Land, looking at him with those soul-stripping blue eyes. He didn’t know demons could even _have_ eyes like that, bottled lightning instead of ink and tar. It still made him shiver to think on it. The way the very touch of it _burned_ , as though Dean had gunpowder in his veins, just waiting to ignite. (His arm had throbbed for days afterward. He’d even bathed his scar in holy water, but nothing helped.) The way it had stood, watching him, square and proud, as though the whole battlefield belonged it. As though _Dean..._

For weeks, a secret restlessness in his blood seemed to echo the fitful, raw spring nights: something in him was waiting to spill over. So it was only right, he guessed, as he wrote another to-be-unanswered postcard to Sam (maybe he was studying for exams? Did they _have_ those at God school?), to hear of it exploding in one terrific bombardment.

A boy—one of those scuff-kneed _garçons_ in a tattered blue coat—shouted and ran up to him, and pausing, breathless, handed him a telegram.

Dean read it with detachment. An attack on Saint-Quentin. Leave was being curtailed immediately for railways personnel and sharpshooters. And Dean, well, he was both.

“Thanks, kid,” he said, because there was nothing else he could say. He drained the last of his coffee—mostly chicory root, these days—and threw a couple of sous on the table. He saw the boy eyeing the coins, and handed him one. Before he walked away, took out the packet of cigarettes Jody had sent. “Here,” he said, tucking a couple into the messenger’s coat pocket. “Sell ‘em. Smoke ‘em. Make some friends.”

The boy called out his thanks as he sprinted away, toward the brasseries and bordellos where the _Entente_ soldiers mingled, to deliver the news.

* * *

The boarding house where Dean’s company billeted, along with several others, stood in a sidestreet whose cobbles were slicked with mud, and where horses with jutting withers and ribs made their way to the town center. There had been no gas to heat the place for months, and they’d been obliged to sleep under layers of blankets, or, sometimes, on the coldest nights, shuffle two-to-a-bed. Some of them absolutely took the opportunity to fuck each other, with the kind of ingenuity and stealth that would probably end up winning the war.

Sergeant Bass, a rifleman from the 2nd Battalion, made overtures in Dean’s direction on more than one occasion, but it came to little more than shivery kisses under the covers until they both fell asleep. Dean didn’t have much interest these days, anyway, in pleasures that existed outside of a whiskey bottle.

Dean was alone in there now, ostensibly checking for any stray personal belongings before meeting the men at the station. This particular duty wasn’t usually his, but he’d dismissed the orderlies and other grunts. Not even the landlord was home, and the street outside was silent. He was surrounded by row on row of of neatly-made cots. Daylight filtered through the sooty windows and fell across the floorboards, making an untimely night. He turned on the lights, though it hardly made a difference. He’d drawn protective sigils in the dust, laughing and calling them good-luck charms. Soldiers were given to superstition and so they’d laughed back and asked him to draw more, and so he had. Miraculously, only one person had drawn a dick, which he’d erased, all in good humor.

Aaron, though, had looked at the sigils, and then at Dean with a lingering focus that wasn’t so much an invitation as a reassessment.

(That night, over dinner of powdered eggs and salted beef, Aaron said, quietly, “When this war finishes, I think you should meet my grandfather.” Then he’d handed him a slip of paper scrawled with the name _Isaac Bass_ and an address for somewhere called Vitsyebsk.)

He checked his watch. He had twenty-seven minutes before he needed to head to the station. The railway lines had been destroyed near Saint-Quentin, so they would be building as they went, and hoping the landmines had been cleared this time.

Twenty-seven minutes. It’d have to do.

“Sorry, Bobby,” he whispered, crouching down to dig into his kit bag. Bobby’s last letter had been shot through with worry like shrapnel. Sam was incommunicado, and so was Missouri; Pam had been in an accident, and Dean was cracking even more than usual.

(He’d love to know what the censors made of “for the love of God, don’t _summon_ the thing, Dean!”).

He took out the old wooden crucifix that he’d inherited from Pastor Jim. It was scarred by woodworm and the lacquer had darkened from a century of hands, but the front still slid away cleanly to reveal a rosary, chalk, a candle, a small bag of rock salt, and a bundle of herbs tied with twine. Dean didn’t know, precisely what he was dealing with, so he’d have to use all of the herbs in the ritual, as well as blood. He was short a summoning bowl, but he rinsed his tin coffee mug with holy water and drew a Rune of Calling on the side—one of the few that had ever been identified from Tiffany de Langely’s staff. He crossed the floor and drew a Devil’s Trap in front of the doorway, and then closed the door. Then, he picked up his rifle and loaded it with a salt shell.

Nineteen minutes.

“Well,” he said, to the empty room. “Let’s see if we can catch this son of a bitch.”

It was as close to an invocation as he had time for. He dropped the herbs into the makeshift summoning bowl and pricked his thumb with the end of his knife. He struck the match and listened to it hiss for a second before he lit the candle. Then he dropped the match in the cup, sending up blue-black plumes of smoke.

For over a minute, nothing happened. Then from nowhere came a great gust of wind, which caused the rafters to groan like a ship at sea. The noise continued, followed by a series of flashes that reminded Dean of cannon-fire. He found himself on the floor; he’d dived on instinct. He hauled himself upright and held his rifle at the ready. There was a heavy sound, like a boulder crashing onto the roof, and then...it was quiet again.

 _Wishful thinking_ , Dean thought, swallowing thickly, _but maybe that was just the wind?_

The door to the room creaked, and Dean gripped his rifle tighter.

The candle blew out.

He trained his sharpshooter’s eyes on the doorknob, waiting for it to turn, but instead the door blew inward, opening with such force that it wrenched halfway off its hinges.

The lights blazed and sizzled above his head. Dean squinted hard against the glare, and a figure appeared in doorway as the first light bulb blew. Dean held his breath and his aim as the creature paused at the threshold, and then stepped across the Devil’s trap without flinching. Dean’s heat dislodged itself and beat out double-time, but he took a deep breath and pulled the trigger, just as the thing’s face came into view.

The rock salt pelted the thing square in its chest, ripping holes in its trench coat. It barely blinked, but fixed its blue eyes like bayonet points on Dean’s face, and kept advancing. Several beds flipped over as it came, passing every sigil without a glance.

It stopped in front of him and watched him, wordless.

Dean dropped his rifle. “Who are you?”

“I’m the one that gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition.” Again, that pleased and predatory undercurrent, as though Dean was a rabbit in its jaws.

Dean’s lip curled and he reached behind him, into his waistband, for his knife. “Yeah. Thanks for that.”

He took half a step forward and brought the knife home, burying it to the hilt in the creature’s chest.

 _Well_ , Dean thought faintly, as it turned its head to look at the knife handle, and then looked back up at Dean, _that didn’t go as planned._ He saw the faintest suggestion of a smile on its face as it pulled the knife free and dropped it to the floor. Oh god, it was _amused_. It was playing with its food.

But it made no move, just continued to look at him, almost curiously.

“We need to talk, Dean.”

“ _Talk?_ And how, how do you know my name? Who the fuck are you?”

“Castiel.”

Dean blanched, feeling the name reverberate somewhere in a dim and disused corner of his mind. Of course it would be named Castiel, but why that was so obvious to him, he didn’t know. He squared himself again.

“I mean _what_ are you?”

For the first time, it blinked, then resumed its staring. “I’m an Angel of the Lord.”

“Get the hell out of here.”

It squinted at him.

“There's no such thing.”

It—Castiel—looked at him for again, for an uncomfortably long time. It didn’t seem to know how to blink properly.

“This is your problem, Dean. You have no faith.”

Then another flash of lighting-from-nowhere lit up the room, and in the flash, he saw great shadows unfurl and raise. Wings. Those were wings, Dean realized. Not the smooth, tranquil dove wings of Christmas-card angels, but something ragged at the edges, something dangerous. Then the light faded, and Dean could no longer see the wings. But the image of them remained on his eyelids for several moments afterward, as if it had been burned in.

Castiel was still examining him, waiting to see what his response would be. Dean realized that his entire body had gone numb and nerveless.

“Your friends were much more willing to believe when they tried summoning me.”

Something pinged in Dean's brain, and the feeling returned to him all at once, in a cold rush of blood. “Bobby?”

Castiel nodded. “And another. A seer.”

A _seer_? What the hell was...wait.

“ _Pamela?”_ He felt the urge to throw a punch. “Was it your fault that poor woman lost her eyes last month?” Bobby had said it was an occupational accident; Dean assumed, until now, that he'd meant the munitions factory.

Something passed across its face, and if Dean didn't know better, he'd swear it was chagrin.

“I warned her. I warned her not to spy on my true form, but she refused to turn away.”

That...did sound like Pam. Still.

“Some angel you are.”

If Castiel realized Dean had insulted him, he gave no indication, which was probably for the best. Instead it said: “My true form. It can be...overwhelming, to humans. My true voice, too.” Again, Dean saw the fleeting suggestion of a smile. “But you already knew that.”

“Wh...The battlefield?”

It nodded.

“My dream, too. That was the same sound. And my...hey. And the phonograph. That was you _talking_?”

It nodded, solemn.

“Buddy, next time lower the volume.”

“That was my mistake. Certain people—special people, can perceive my true visage. I...thought you would be one of them.” For the first time, it looked troubled. “I was wrong.”

Dean smirked. “Yeah? And what... _visage_ are you in now, huh?” He gestured at it, taking its rumpled suit and tired shoes, with the tan coat hanging open, like it had gotten dressed in a hurry. He looked like a mid-level civil servant, someone who worried way above his pay grade. “Some kind of holy tax accountant?”

It looked down at its body, touching the lapel of the coat uncertainty. “This, my superiors ordered me to wear, to be less….conspicuous.”

Dean thought of what he’d just witnessed, and snorted.

“This?” it continued, touching its chest, where the knife had been. “This is a vessel.”

Dean looked again, and saw the signs of ordinary daily wear at the margins of whatever stood before him now. “You’re _possessing_ some poor bastard?”

 _One more for the demon column_ , Dean thought, sourly. _Or close enough to one._

It frowned, as though it had heard. “He’s a devout man. _We_ don’t possess without consent. He actually _prayed_ for this.”

Dean eyed his fallen knife, but decided it wasn’t worth the trouble of stooping down to get it. He didn’t want to expose the back of his neck, anyway. Instead he crossed his arms.

“Well, I’m not buying what you’re selling, and I’m gonna miss my train. So what are you, really?”

“I told you.”

Dean barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes. “Right.” And then, he took a deep breath, and stared it straight in the face. “And why would an angel rescue me from Hell?”

There was a hint of something—exasperation, or confusion, or both—in its voice as it said, “Good things do happen, Dean.” It took a small step toward him.

Dean felt the urge to lash out again rise up in him, behind his breastbone. “Not in my experience.”

“What’s the matter?” It stepped closer again, much too close, and looked at him as though he was trying to unravel a particularly difficult knot. “You don’t think you deserve to be saved?”

Dean felt a hot well of tears—always closer to the surface than he cared to contemplate—and held them back through sheer will.

“Why’d you do it?” It came out closer to a plea than he wanted.

Dean felt the full force of those eyes on him again, and his hand flexed at his side, but he held still.

“Because,” Castiel said, “God commanded it. Because we have work for you.”

It stretched out its hand, and before Dean could even gather breath to scream, he was being ripped apart by an arc of unbearable light. Then he opened his eyes, and he was in the field behind the station, with his weapons and his kit bag at his feet. He dropped to his knees and heaved, bringing up the coffee he’d had earlier.

Then he took a breath, and another, and another, until he was able to stand. He picked up his things, and walked toward the waiting train, with fire still echoing in his bones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was both strange and fun to write. It's not often I get to lift whole sections of dialogue and try and make them work in a new setting, and I felt a little bit giddy while doing it!


	7. A Good Man is Hard to Find

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean goes hunting, and gets into a few arguments with some supernatural beings. It's the most normal thing he's done in months.

The tide of the war began to turn in Saint-Quentin. Even Dean, who had practiced the art of not-feeling over many years and had perfected it in France, could feel it. Some of it was due to a surge in reinforcements, but there was a distinct difference in the air that had nothing to do with the season as they chased the retreating German line.

Part of it, Dean had to admit, was the fact that when he closed his eyes, he sometimes saw Castiel’s darkly amused face staring back at him. He said the name to himself, too, as though it might hold some answers, before remembering that Castiel could probably hear him. Then he changed tack. _What the fuck kind of name is_ Castiel _anyway?_ He thought, as loudly as possible, while sharpening his bayonet or darning his socks.

(He’d written to Kevin in California to ask just that, and to see if he could find out where the hell Sam was. Neither answer had been satisfactory:  _The Angel of Thursday_ , and _visiting some friends with a woman named Ruby._ )

“Oh, and just who the fuck is _Ruby_?” Dean asked—out loud, by the look Zeddmore was giving him—as he shoveled some sand into a bag. But he didn’t dare write to Kevin again to ask; even the poor kid’s handwriting gave off an air of utter exhaustion.

Well, he could join the fucking club.

 _You spend your best years raising a kid,_ Dean thought, in time to the shovel-falls, _and how does he repay you? He sneaks around and decides to become a lawyer, and then decides he wants to be a fucking_ priest, _and_ then _he runs away with some goddamned girl named_ Ruby _without so much as—-_

Zeddmore and some other schmuck were standing in front of him, suddenly, and Dean stabbed the head of the shovel into the wet ground. _“What?”_

“Uh, Corporal, I...Spengler has offered to take over for you.” A cough. “Sir.”

Dean narrowed his eyes and looked at the two of them. He only spoke to Spengler when absolutely necessary, and it wasn’t necessary now. “Fine,” he snapped, and left the shovel standing upright as he stalked away.

God what he wouldn’t give for a...a werewolf or a vampire or something. Something straightforward and easy. Something he knew how to deal with, for once. Anything but Sam’s life decisions, or Castiel’s blue eyes.

* * *

Castiel was standing over him in the moonlight. Dean had no idea how long he’d been there, watching him sleep with his feet propped up against the dugout wall, but Dean jolted and sat up, reaching for his knife on instinct. He only relaxed when the indistinct outline resolved itself in the eerily bright midnight. “Damn it,” he muttered, looking around.

But they were alone.

“What were you dreaming about?”

Dean was starting to get the impression that Castiel wasn’t big on pleasantries. Which was fine. He wasn’t looking to befriend the damn guy. Thing.

Still, he couldn’t stop himself from saying, “Hello, to you, too. You get your kicks from watching people sleep?”

There was a slight side-tilt to the head, which Dean could see from the glint of light on Castiel’s hair, but that was the only reaction he earned.

He sighed and stood, joints stiff like old leather from the chilly night air. “I don’t remember,” he said, answering Castiel’s question. All the nightmares blended together now, like garish gashes of paint that bled into a thick brown sludge in his brain. But even as he said it, something nagged at him, just under the surface. Tonight, his thoughts lingered on Sam, but he couldn’t plainly say why.

“You’re troubled,” Castiel said. “In a different way than usual,” he added. He seemed completely unconcerned that they might be discovered.

“Setting aside the fact that it’s creepy as hell that you seem to know me well enough to know what my _usual_ level of troubled is, why are you here?”

They stood close, so close, that Dean could see the furrow of Castiel’s brow, as though the question was unexpected. “I told you, we have work for you.”

“Yeah, yeah, I remember. Your whole _Hail thou that are highly favored_ routine.”

“No, that was...one of my older brothers.” There was a strange catch in his voice as he said it, but he didn’t elaborate.

“Okay.” Dean crossed his arms and rubbed them roughly. Even as it crept further into April, the ground was still cold, and it seemed to seep into every part of him.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying not to die of hypothermia.”

Castiel frowned, and, still frowning, reached out and touched Dean’s shoulder.

“Wh-hey!” Dean hissed, jerking away and barely remembering to keep his voice down. But then a thread of warmth wound its way into him, like a faint breeze from a Kansas summer. He wasn’t exactly comfortable now, but his shivering stopped, and the ache in his bones lessened. “Thanks,” he said, uncertainly.

“There’s a Hellhound,” Castiel said, instead of saying _you’re welcome_.

“Gosh, I hadn’t noticed,” Dean spat. “It’s not like it gutted my friend like a fish right in front of me, or anything.”

Castiel shook his head. “That one, I slaughtered. This is another. There may be more. We think a pack might be...congregating.”

“Congregating,” Dean repeated. “Well, that’s just great. Tell whoever’s calling them to put the liver snaps away.”

Castiel squinted at him. “We don’t know who’s calling them,” he said, after a beat. “Whoever it is...remains beyond our sight.” He almost sounded—uncomfortable, as though he’d admitted something embarrassing.

“So?”

“So, you’ve spent your life hunting unclean beasts.”

“Oh, and you want me to play dog-catcher for the Big Man upstairs? Tell him I want to have a word with him, first. I don’t know if anyone’s mentioned this, but there’s a war going on.”

Castiel sighed. “You are called to help Heaven, Dean. You wouldn’t be called if you weren’t prepared to answer.”

“Buddy, I’ve already been called up once for a war I want nothing to do with. My dance card’s a little full.”

Castiel leaned in nearer, and Dean had to force himself not to flinch away from the attention, bearing down on him like a train. “This war is a symptom of a larger war, Dean. A war that my siblings and I have spent thousands of years preparing for. Our numbers are not unlimited. Two of my brothers died last week to bring me this information. Good soldiers. Two of my best.”

Dean swallowed. “What can kill an angel?”

Castiel nodded and stared Dean dead in the eye. “Exactly.” He broke eye contact to look around the battleground, which even in the middle of the night groaned and moved and shuddered. “There are forces at work here,” Castiel said, looking back at Dean, “which you can’t possibly comprehend.”

“Gee, thanks.”

There was another pause, and then Castiel spoke again, and his voice took on a calculating quality. “You want something straightforward. Something you understand. Hunting Hellhounds fulfills that need for you, doesn’t it?”

 _This one_ , thought Dean, _is real fucking dangerous._

“How...Have you been spying on me, pal?”

“Your thoughts are frequently...unguarded. And loud.”

“Fantastic. So all the other choirboys can hear me when I think about letting Theda Bara sit on my face?” Only after the question was out did Dean realize exactly what he’d asked.

 _What the hell is the_ matter _with you_ , Dean _,_ he heard Sam’s voice say in his head.

“I tend to tune out your coitus-related thoughts,” said Castiel, sounding bored. “Though the ones you have about Douglas Fairbanks are...persistent.”

Dean hoped, just then, for a mortar shell to land on him and blow him into a thousand pieces. For once, though, the sky remained mortar-free.

“Great,” said Dean. Or rather, managed to approximate, since his entire head felt like it was on fire. At least he was warmer now.

“But no, in answer to your question. I don’t intentionally listen in on you, unless you specifically draw my attention. My dance card is, uh, as you say, a little full.”

“So you send out the grunt, huh? Have him clean up the place? Look around you, it’s nothing but _unclean_ for hundreds of miles. Kids die left, right, and center.”

“And if you’re the kind of man you’re supposed to be—the kind of man they tell me you are, you’ll want to do everything in your power to stop at least some of those deaths.”

Dean toyed with the idea of stabbing him again, just to let off some steam. The Bad Idea Klaxon had started to sound in his brain. He ignored it.

“And what kind of man am I _supposed_ _to be_ , huh?”

“Righteous.”

It was a heavy, star-edged word in Castiel’s voice. The first syllable was the sound of a trumpet, or a ram’s horn, and the second, the sound of a smith’s hammer on a sword. It made Dean shudder with an unnamable feeling.

“You, what, you want some nobody dropout from Kansas to help you?”

“The Lord works...”

“If you say ‘mysterious ways’, so help me, I will kick your ass.”

The Bad Idea Klaxon was stunned into silence.

But Castiel just held up his hands in a placating gesture, and didn’t reduce Dean to a pile of salt. “I told you. There are dark things at work here, Dean, that will have dire consequences if they aren’t stopped.

Hellhounds are solitary creatures. The fact that they’re forming a pack is....concerning. Someone has the strength not only to call them, but to convince them to overcome their natural tendencies. We need to know who that is. And we need to stop them. Immediately. And to do that, we need you.”

“Uncle Sam needs me too,” he said, letting the full weight of his disdain hit Castiel in the chest, because sometimes he really was as stupid as people said he was.

It didn’t have the desired impact. “What part of this seems like a request to you?”

Dean rose up on the balls of his feet, which gave him several inches over Castiel. “Oh? And what if I say no, asshole?”

Castiel went still. “You should show me,” he said, soft and measured, and utterly terrifying, “some respect. I dragged you out of Hell. I can throw you back in.”

Dean's stomach dropped toward his boots, and he looked down. He found his breath after several seconds. “Fine. I'll do it. But I still think you're a dick.”

Something like a smile crossed Castiel’s face. “Fair,” he said. “When it’s done, pray to me and I'll come to you.”

And then he was gone, and the cold crept slowly back into Dean’s body.

* * *

Two nights later, Dean heard the howling as he came out of the mess tent, feeling slightly worse than he went in. He wasn’t due for patrol until morning, but the way the hair stood up on the back of his neck told him that he needed to hunt tonight. If he didn’t, he’d lose his chance to find the bastard who was calling them until they decided to sic their pets on a platoon or two. And if he couldn’t find the owner, at least he could do a little hunting.

He turned on his heel and made his way to the officers’ tent, where Captain Shurley was taking his supper. Dean called out and waited to be given permission to enter, running through his list of supplies and tapping out an irritated rhythm on his thigh. When no answer came, he peered into the tent anyway, to find the Captain half-slumped over his typewriter, with a burning cigarette in his lips.Next to him was a mostly empty bottle of absinthe that he’d probably found in some bombed-out bar.

Dean stepped quickly into the tent. “Sir? Captain Shurley.” He got a bleary blink for an answer. “Chuck.”

Finally, his eyes focused on Dean. After a fashion.

“Let’s, uh. Let’s put that cigarette out,” Dean said, walking over to him and plucking the cigarette from his lips. He crushed it under his heel, where it threw up a shower of sparks, and then died. “There are enough fires in this town already. We don’t need to add any more excitement.” For good measure, Dean took the bottle of absinthe and set it out of sight.

“Sure,” Chuck said, sitting up straighter. “What can I do for you, Dean?” Over the past weeks, designations of rank became more and more obscure. Now it seemed like he was done with them altogether. Dean wasn’t sure that he liked it.

“Sir, I...Chuck, I want to change my patrol schedule.”

“Oh, yeah?” Chuck asked, laughing. “You want to, ah, maybe postpone your patrols indefinitely? You wouldn’t be the first to ask me that.”

“No,” said Dean. “I want to go on patrol. Right now.”

“What?”  
“I’ll still do the morning patrol. But, I…”

Chuck lit another cigarette and looked down at his typewriter. “You want to do extra patrol?”

“Yes, sir. Right now, if possible, sir.”

Chuck squinted at whatever he’d written on the page, as though he couldn’t decipher it. Maybe he couldn’t. He probably had more absinthe than blood in his body at the moment. “You feeling suicidal, or you just want to spend some time with Corporal Lafitte?”

“I didn't realize Corporal Lafitte was back at the Front. Sir.”

“This afternoon, I think.” Chuck lit another cigarette and took the paper from the typewriter, shaking his head. He crumpled the paper and tossed it over his shoulder, towards the waste-paper basket. He missed. “Do you ever feel,” he said around his cigarette, as he slid another paper in and turned the platen, “that somehow everything just went wrong but you can't figure out where?”

“Every day.”

“I didn’t want any of this. I just wanted everything to work out, but everyone seems to have a mind of their own and….” He tipped his head back and blew out a plume of blue-grey smoke. “Writing is hard. I never meant for it to go this way.”

“Chuck.” Chuck looked at him, like he was surprised to see Dean still standing there. “Patrol?”

“Yeah, sure. They're meeting by the bridge.”

“When?”

“Uh.” Chuck tore his bloodshot eyes away from the typewriter and looked at the watch he wore on his wrist. “Thirty minutes?”

Dean left without saying thank you. On his way out, he picked up the absinthe bottle and drank the remainder. God, he hated the taste of absinthe.

Dean collected his rifle and put his helmet on.

Bobby had sent him a small iron rosary after Dean’s last run-in with a Hellhound. ( _Had a problem with a dog,_ Dean’s letter had said. _Big, ugly thing, smelled like sulfur._ Bobby’s reply had kindly not mentioned how illegible Dean’s handwriting was becoming.) Dean took the rosary apart and sewed the beads into his gloves. Hand-to-hand was hardly ideal when fighting a Hellhound—or anything from those parts, really—but you had to work with what you had. And Dean always had his fists, and an unwavering desire to punch monsters in the face.

He put on his gloves and thought about Castiel.

“Alright. You looking, you feathery little bastard? I’m doing it. Uh.” He crossed himself hesitantly. “Amen.”

The breeze ruffled Dean’s coat, but nothing else happened, and so he made his way through the spring mud and toward the bridge.

Benny raised a hand in greeting at Dean’s approach, a full thirty seconds before the other person noticed he was there. Benny maintained he just had keen eyesight from growing up in the bayou—“always on the lookout for things that wanna bite ya”—but Dean knew different, had known different within ten seconds of meeting him, back on that frosty February morning. He’d seen the unearthly steeliness in those blue eyes, and the instant he made contact with that cold, cold hand, he’d reached for his knife.

But he’d stopped himself, surrounded by wounded men and nurses. None of them were paying attention to the two of them now, and he wanted to keep it that way. He smiled at Lafitte, as charming as he could.

“Nice to meet you, Corporal. Say, I feel like taking a walk. Care to join me?”

Lafitte smiled right back, sharp and knowing. “Sure, Chief. It’s a beautiful, sunny day, after all.”

And that gave Dean pause. It wasn’t, actually, that nice a day out. The wind was brittle and wintry, with restless clouds passing across the sun. But it _was_ daytime. Lafitte moved away a little, until he was standing directly in a sunbeam. He had his sleeves rolled up, exposing his broad forearms, which Dean also took in, confused. Benny raised his eyebrows. The look on his face was half-threat, half-joke. (Maybe, Dean was starting to realize, creatures shared notes. Or maybe he just brought that out in creatures. People.)

“That it is,” he said, continuing to smile. “Let me show you around the camp.” _Especially the abandoned grain silo_ , Dean thought. _Nice and secluded._

“Sounds good,” Lafitte said. He left the infirmary tent without fetching his coat.

They talked of pleasant things as they made their way through camp: of pretty girls, and melodies, and food they remembered from years ago. It turned out they’d both been to the same diner outside of Baton Rouge, a place called Audra’s, which had two tables and the best pecan pie either of them had ever had.

Dean almost regretted, as the crowd thinned out and the grain silo appeared on the hill, what he was about to do. He’d have to be fast, too, because Lafitte was on to him. If he could run him through with his bayonet and pin him to the silo wall, he’d have time to decapitate him. But he might make noise. He could aim for the throat (and wasn’t that a hilarious fucking irony) and sever the vocal cords, though it was a lot harder to hit.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a cigarette, would you, Chief?”

Dean turned his full attention to Lafitte’s face, and saw that he was also being sized up.

“Sure thing, pal.” He fished the packet of cigarettes from his front pocket and offered it up.

“How ‘bout you?”  
“Nah. Not really in the mood.” Dean struck a match and held it out. He held his rifle tighter, waiting for Lafitte to lower his head and light the cigarette.

“Whatever you’re thinking of doing with that pig-sticker of yours, boy,” Lafitte said, grabbing Dean’s hand and holding the match to the tip of the cigarette. The move was sudden and hard, and it caused Dean to drop his gun. Lafitte’s grip was like iron. He took a drag while Dean was still off-balance. “You better reconsider.” He blew out a ring of smoke. “I ain’t what you think I am.”

Dean scrambled for his knife, which had moved permanently to his belt, and held it to Lafitte’s throat. “Neither am I.”

They stood in tense silence, waiting for someone to make the first move.

“Start talking,” Dean said at last.

“Lemme guess,” Lafitte said. “You saw the eyes, maybe the teeth…” He smiled again, and—well those weren’t fangs, but they sure as hell weren’t normal teeth, either.

“The cold hands.”

“It’s _February.”_

“You should have _frostbite_ at that temperature.”

“Fine, fine.” He didn’t let go of Dean, and Dean didn’t lower his knife. “But you’re thinkin’. Hmm. Sunlight. Not a flinch.”  
“You were in the infirmary. Lots of blood.”

“Mm, you ain’t wrong. Except you are.”

“Listen, buddy, I’ve already had a ‘cryptic-exchange-with-a-monster’ scenario this year. Talk, or I start carving and I don’t care if I lose an arm in the process.”

Benny widened his eyes, but nodded, seemingly heedless of the blade against his neck. “You’re thinking vampire.”

“Any reason I shouldn’t be?”

“Suppose not. But you’d only be half right.”

“How’s that?”

“Because I’m half-blood, that’s how.”

“You’re...a _dhampir._ ”

“My mama always called me _that blood-sucking bastard’s son_ , but yes, if you want to be technical about it.” He stared at Dean as he reached up and took the cigarette from his mouth, flicking the ash off the end. Dean’s wrist was starting to bruise.

Most of him wanted to say that dhampir didn’t exist, but the part of him that had recently stabbed an angel in the heart said: “Prove it.”

“Besides the sunlight?” Benny sighed. “You think I’d spend my days covered in the blood of dead men if I was a full vampire?”

It was flimsy, but Dean was tired, and fed up, and hadn’t understood anything in months, so he just nodded. He used his thumb and forefinger to turn the blade away from Benny’s throat.

Benny smiled, warm and friendly again, and let go of Dean’s hand. They stepped away from each other, out of arm’s reach, at the same time. _Good instincts_ , Dean had to admit. _Hunter instincts._

“Why are you here?”

“I was posted here,” Benny said. “Same as you.” Benny dropped the cigarette and ground it into the dirt. “Sorry ‘bout your hand, brother.”

Dean rolled his eyes and sheathed his knife. “You were drafted?”

“Volunteered.”

“Why?”

“A man can’t love his country?”

“That’s not what this is, and you know it.”

Benny snorted. “Alright. Got word my daddy was out this way. In Switzerland, maybe.”

“You looking for a family reunion?”

Benny looked at Dean, cold and feral. “I’m looking to kill the bastard.”

Dean fumbled for a response.“Families, uh, are complicated,” Dean said, and cleared his throat. “I mean. You might have to wait a long time. What if this war goes on for another ten years? What if he’s not in Switzerland?”

Benny shrugged. “I’ve been hunting him for fifty. I know how to be patient, Chief.”

Dean laughed. “I know a thing or three about killing vamps.”

“Figured as much.”

“So if you want any pointers, let me know.”

Benny looked pleased, and held out his hand again. This time, when Dean shook it, he didn’t flinch from the cold.

* * *

They sent Zeddmore away, sulking, from their mission. The fellow was a bad luck charm, as far as Dean was concerned, and he was all stocked up on the stuff already. Plus, he and his pal, Spengler, had already started asking pestering questions about what happened on that day in March, and Dean wasn’t in the mood to relive it, especially not for an audience.      

When they were sure he was gone, they stepped back under the bridge. “I heard two, at least,” Benny said, quietly. “Maybe three. Northwest of here.”

“Toward Mézières?”

“Mm.”

“I heard...not sure how many,” Dean admitted. He didn’t have Benny’s hearing, and what he did have was probably permanently damaged. “But a lot closer. To the south.”

“They’re circling.”

“Looks that way.”

“Why don’t they attack?”

“Well,” Benny said, peering around the pile of the bridge, “I’m no Hellhound expert, but based on what your feathered friend said, I think they’re waiting for a signal.”

Dean checked his ammunition one more time. This was the very last of the goofer dust. He didn’t know when he’d get more. “But whose signal, is the question.”

“Don’t know,” Benny said, cracking his neck. “One problem at a time, brother.”

“If only,” Dean said, grinning.

Benny gave a faint laugh, and then became serious. He turned his head to listen to the night, and to scent the air.

“Anything?” Dean asked.

“No human beings out there,” Benny said, quietly, “at least not in this place.” He went, if possible, even stiller. “But I think,” he whispered, “we’ve got company.”

“Dog sign?”

Benny made an affirmative noise. “Just under a mile.” He pointed out into the darkness.

“What we need is bait.”

Benny looked at him. Even in the pale moonlight Dean could see the incredulousness on his face. “You want us to go out there and call ‘em?”

“Not us,” whispered Dean. “Me.”

“Are you _nuts_?”

“It’s been said.” Dean crouched down, and Benny followed. “Look, see that bunch of trees over there?” (He knew that _trees_ applied in only the loosest sense. These had been burned and blasted until they were little more than the memory of trees.)

“You head that way along the creek bank,” Dean continued. “I’ll walk across the open ground. They’ll come for me. But you’ll be there first.”

Benny shook his head. “They’ll know I’m there.”

“Y’see, I _am_ a Hellhound expert.” He tapped Benny’s chest. “Dhampir, remember? They’ll focus on my scent before they notice you. Just...make sure you’re there before them.”

“If I’m not?”

Dean shuddered. He knew what it felt like to have those claws rip into his flesh, to feel that hot, sour breath on his face, to see those rows of serrated teeth closing in. It was the kind of pain that survived death, and resurrection. He flexed his fingers, feeling the reassuring weight of his gloves. “Just make sure you are.”

Benny looked like he wanted to say something else, but he just gave one short, curt nod, and moved off. Dean watched his retreating back until it disappeared from view. He closed his eyes and counted to ten, mostly to slow his heartbeat, and then stepped out into the wasteland.

He didn’t even have to try to slow his pace. Walking over the scarred ground, carved up by shell and tank, required him to pick his way carefully. By the time he’d covered five hundred yards, the first hint of sunlight appeared on the horizon. At least now he could see. The trees were in sight when he felt the first pricklings on the back of his neck that told him he wasn’t alone.

Dean pressed his lips together and stood still, trying to hear. Every noise made him jumpy and he cursed the ringing in his left ear. He readied his rifle and kept walking, eyes straight ahead.

There. That unmistakable sound, that low down, belly-to-the-ground growl that carried through bone and blood. Off behind and to the left. It knew. It knew he had trouble hearing on that side.

“Clever girl,” he muttered, and ran for it.

He heard the thudding footfalls behind him, then silence as it leapt. Dean waited a split second, then dropped to one knee and thrust his bayonet into the air. The yowl overhead told him that he’d struck home, and the bitter blood splashing on his coat confirmed it. Still it twisted to turn and bite him, infuriated, as it slid down the length of the bayonet blade. He grabbed wildly, finding the side of its face. The iron beads did their job, and the scent of burning hair filled his nose. It was practically on top of him now, kicking out with its curved claws, looking to damage anything it could.

“Ben—”

Suddenly its head was gone, and there was silence. Benny stood, with his knife still outstretched. Its edge was blackened from where it had struck, and his eyes were fathomless. Bloodlust, pure and simple. Dean knew the look.

And then Benny was himself again. He held out his hand and helped Dean to his feet.

“Didn’t even waste a bullet,” Dean said, smiling madly.

“Brother, you got a death wish.”

Dean spat and dislodged the Hellound remains from his bayonet. It crashed to the earth and then slowly turned to ash. “Nah,” he said, wiping the sweat from his brow. “I used to do this all the time as a kid. Dad said it was my specialty.”

Benny looked at him for a long time. “Your daddy. He still around?”

“No. Why?”

“‘Cause I was gonna add him to my list.”

Dean opted not to respond to that.  He bought himself time by taking a drink from his canteen. The water was faintly metallic, but cool in his throat. He offered some to Benny, who shook his head. “Come on,” Dean said, when he was done. “There’s more out there.”

* * *

They found, and killed, four more before the morning was over. By noon, they staggered back to the bridge, covered in blood and sulfur and things Dean couldn’t bear to think about. They dropped their weapons, stripped off their clothes, and waded out into the stream, waist-deep in the icy water. Benny eyed his scars, particularly the five-fingered brand, but said nothing, for which Dean was immensely grateful.

It was then that the demon appeared on the bank in front of them.

“My, my,” it purred, wearing the face of a handsome, blond youth. “What a treat.”

Dean and Benny shouted simultaneously, reaching for weapons that weren’t there.

“You killed my boss’ dogs,” it continued. It reached its hand into the water, and the water began to steam and boil. “And that’s going to get me fired. Literally, in this case.”

Dean took a breath, whether to shout  for help or to begin an exorcism, he wasn’t sure. But then a bolt of white-hot lightning struck the demon down where it sat, leaving behind nothing but a wisp of smoke. The water began to cool at once.

“What the hell?” Dean asked.

“Guess again.”

They turned as one to find Castiel standing on the opposite bank. He let his gaze travel from where the demon had been to where Benny and Dean were now.

“Cas?”

“I’m gonna start charging admission,” Benny grumbled. Then, louder: “This him? The little bird on your shoulder?”

“I’m not here to perch on Dean’s shoulder,” Cas said, sounding waspish. “Or anyone else’s.”

“You don’t say.”

“Someone put me out of my misery,” Dean groaned, looking toward the sky.

“I came to tell you...excellent work with the Hellhounds. We didn’t think you’d find all the roaming ones.”

Dean climbed out of the water. “Wait, did you...did you _know_ where they were?” Dean chose to ignore the fact that he was standing naked and shivering in front of an angel of the Lord.

“Our orders were to see how you would do with limited intel.” Cas looked away briefly. Probably not embarrassment. The guy didn’t seem to be capable of feeling it. Or much of anything.

“You son of a bitch. We could have been killed.”

Castiel looked at him again. “That was never on the table.”

“That would have been,” Benny said, joining Dean and retrieving the towel from his kit bag, “useful to know before we started this little jaunt.”

“There’s one left,” Cas said, mildly. “Bigger than the others, and better-trained.”

“No,” Dean said. “I’m done. I’m tired, I’m cold, I’m hungry, and I’ve been covered in blood and Hellhound drool for seven hours. Go kill it yourself.”

Castiel appeared, directly behind them. Dean flinched and tied his towel around his waist as quickly as possible.

“This one,” Castiel said, “you don’t need to kill. It’s not planning to attack. I just need you to see who, um, is holding the leash.”

“I’ve had it up to here with your cryptic orders,” Dean said, keeping his back to Castiel. “This one ain’t planning to kill? Fine, let me know when it’s urgent.”

“You’re upset.”

Benny buttoned his trousers and stifled a laugh.

Dean clenched his fists. “Oh, for the love of…”

“Let me give you,” Castiel said quietly, “a token of thanks, then.”

“A what now?” Dean asked, feeling an unfamiliar panic run through his body as he turned to look at Castiel..

“A show of good faith.” He reached out his hand again, but he must have taken in Dean’s unhappy surprise the first time, and so waited for Dean to nod his acceptance. Castiel gave the faintest flicker of a smile and laid his hand on the side of Dean’s face. The panic stopped running and started galloping. But whatever Dean expected, it didn’t happen. His head lit up from the inside, like a galaxy pushing outward, until he was certain he’d cry stars. He smelled lightning and desert air.

Then Castiel took his hand away and Dean gasped, startled to see that he was still standing on a muddy creek bank in France. He pressed his hand to his left ear. The endless ringing was gone.

“I…” Dean blinked rapidly, trying to recalibrate himself. “Thank you,” he said at last.

“Of course.”  
“This is mighty touching,” Benny said, startling them. Dean was both thankful and irritated at the interruption. “But it wasn’t just the pretty one who helped, you know.”

Castiel studied Benny carefully. “What would you ask, dhampir?”

“Well, that you call me somethin’ besides _dhampir_ , for a start. Benny. Or Lafitte. Or…” He grinned. “Corporal.”

“Alright.” He narrowed his eyes. “And what else?”

“You’re a messenger, right? Tell me where my father is.”

Castiel looked startled. “Messenger is a poor translation of what I do. And your request will have to wait.”

“Bullshit.”

“When the battle’s over,” Castiel said, darkly, “then you can seek your revenge.”

“I have your word on that, huh?”

“Heaven provides for its allies.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Dean was right about you. Fine. I’ve lost a lot of blood from this damn dog bite. Can you do anything about that?”

Dean wheeled around to stare at him. “You said it wasn’t that bad!”

“What?” Benny asked, as Cas touched his forehead. “Were you going to give me some of yours?”

“Yes!”

Castiel and Benny looked at him in unison. “Oh,” Benny said, in a small voice. “Well, never mind. It’s fine now.”

“Damn it, Benny.”

“Dean talks about me?”

“All the goddamned time.”

“Ah.”

For the second time that day, Dean wished for death, and death ignored him. He hastily finished climbing back into his clothes.

“Anyway,” Dean said. “This Hellhound.”

“It’s inside the town wall,” Castiel said.

“ _Inside_ ? That’s...that’s near where Ash’s company is stationed.”   
“Yes.”

“What’s it doing there?”

“Keeping watch. We think.”

“Watch for what?”

“That part of the town is warded to me. I need you to find out.”

Castiel stood between them and placed his hands on both of their shoulders. Before Dean realized what was happening, he and Benny were back in town.   
“Don’t... _do_...that.” Dean wheezed.

“Why not? It’s efficient.”

“I feel like my guts are going to come out of my ears,” Benny groaned.

Castiel rolled his eyes. “Call me when you’re done.”

“You’re welcome!” Dean shouted, into the empty space where Castiel once stood. “Honestly, Benny, I…”

Benny pushed his hand against Dean’s chest and silenced him with a look. “You smell that?”

“I smell cowshit, grease, and gunpowder.”

“And sulfur.”  
Dean looked around. There was a collection of low, crumbling buildings that had been turned into machine shops, and a small, nondescript barn that never seemed to have any livestock in it. “Munitions?” he asked hopefully.

“Demon.” Benny pointed at the barn. “There.”

Dean sighed. “Alright. Let’s go.”

They sidled their way from building to building, careful to keep out of sight. Dean’s hearing was suddenly as keen as a child’s, and it was almost painful, all the sounds hitting him at once. Still, though he strained to the limit of his senses, he couldn’t hear the Hellhound.

They made it to the barn door without incident.

“This seems a little too easy,” Benny commented, glancing around.

Dean said nothing. He cocked his rifle and prepared to kick in the door. He never got the chance. As he readied himself, it swung open, silently, to reveal a splendid room, hung in blood red and black velvet. At the far end, across the polished black floor, was an ornate throne of ebony. It was empty.

“Come on in, boys,” said a voice that Dean found strangely familiar.

“I’m thinking,” Benny whispered, “we probably shouldn’t.”

“Corporal Lafitte, I admire your eminent good sense. Corporal Winchester, however, isn’t so burdened.”

A figure appeared, halfway down the room.

“I know you,” Dean said, feeling rage bubble up all at once. “You...you were Ash’s CO. Taylor.” He took a step toward the door.

“Dean,” Benny said. A warning. 

“Captain Taylor commends his men for making the ultimate sacrifice.” The man shrugged. “But me? I laugh.”

“Brother, don’t.”

“Who are you?” Dean asked, gritting his teeth.

“The name’s Crowley,” the figure said. “King of the Crossroads.” He moved closer, until Dean could see his smile. “I believe you’ve had dealings with some of my agents before.” His eyes flashed red, the color of fresh blood. “And I’d like to make a deal. I tell you who’s trying to steal my dog, and you keep your little haloed boyfriend off my case.”

“Dean...”

Dean stepped inside. The door swung shut, cutting off the sound of Benny’s shout.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to have to put this fic on hiatus until November while I deal with some personal stuff, but I want to thank you so much for reading this far and I hope you'll come back when I pick this up again.


	8. Dear Old Pal of Mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean goes tete-a-tete with a certain demon, and gets some surprising news from several sources.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional warnings for the chapter in the end notes.

A darkly bristling presence brushed by Dean’s leg, leaving a trail of brimstone in his nose. The Hellhound. He quenched the desire to slit its throat. He had to keep eyes on the demon in front of him, the one wearing that shifty-looking meat suit and conspicuously expensive cravat. He heard a heavy _wuff_ as the Hellhound settled at the base of the throne, causing a tremor to travel through the floor.

“Good girl, Juliet,” the demon—Crowley—said in a gentle voice. It made Dean’s skin crawl.  Maybe it was the atmosphere in this place, or the smell, or something else Dean couldn’t define, but a memory threatened to climb up out of his throat in the form of a scream. All at once he heard Alistair (a name he hadn’t said to anyone, not even himself, in years) crooning similar words in a similar tone into his ear.

“Do pay attention,” Crowley said, sounding bored, as he stepped onto the dais and sat.

Dean raised his eyebrows. “Trust me, you got every ounce of me and my knife’s attention.”

Crowley smiled at that. “Kurdish, is it? Very rare. I saw you, ah, fondling it.”

“Cut the crap,” Dean said. “You said you had intel?”

Crowley made a show of examining his fingernails. “I said I’d like to make a deal. It’s kind of my forte.”

Dean stepped forward, and a quiet growl rose up from the ground. “You said yourself, I’ve dealt with some of your thugs before. You know how well that ended for them.”

“Mm,” Crowley said, nodding, still smiling. “I also know how well it ended for you.”

Dean smiled back, the kind of smile he’d learned in Hell, and the Hound at Crowley’s feet grew quiet. “Yeah, how _did_ that end? Oh, wait. With me topside and them dead.”

Crowley turned serious. “Don’t try my patience.”

“Tell me what you want, and I’ll tell you how many pieces I’m gonna carve you into.”

Crowley rolled his eyes. “There’s no rack in Hell as torturous as the grammar you just used on me.” He sighed. “But fine.” He stepped down from the throne and walked toward Dean. “As I said: you keep the celestials out of my hair, even the, hm, _charismatic_ one, and I’ll tell you who’s after Juliet here.”

Dean weighed up his options, arguing with himself. The part that had been blunted and burned by mortar rounds—which was most of him, these days—wanted to stab this son of a bitch, and then turn and walk out so he could tell the entire supernatural world to kiss his ass. Whatever would happen, would happen, and he’d stay focused on not getting his head blown off of his shoulders so he could go back to Kansas and go to bed. The part of him that had made deals with demons before thought that was a pretty solid plan. But another part—a sliver of stubbornness and anger and love that had permanently lodged itself in him—shook him by the shoulders until his bones rattled.

When in doubt, stall.

“Define ‘out of your hair’,” Dean said, buying time.

“Defi—I think you may have taken one too many blows to the head, Dean. _Out of my hair_. Away from me and my little enterprise. I’ve got a lot of irons in the fire right now, as I’m sure you can appreciate.”

“See, when a demon tells me it wants to be left alone to do its work, that’s where I start to have problems.” He paused as the realization dawned on him. “You’re afraid of them. Of him.”

“Nonsense.”

“Nah. Cas may be a dick, but he’s a dick with the power to put you in your place. That has you scared.”

“I...will explore that sentiment later,” Crowley said, shaking his head as though to clear a stray thought.  “The point is, Dean, I do everything by the book. _My_ book, naturally, but still, I follow it to the letter.”

“So? Make your point quick, because you’ve got a dhampir out there who’s a trifle, uh, agitated right now.”

Crowley’s eyes turned red, then back to brown, and Dean was reminded of a snake opening its mouth in a threat display. Or in fear.

“I could have your little half-blood friend’s head mounted on my wall by tea time,” Crowley said pleasantly.

It was probably a bluff. But still. “Mm, I’m not so sure. Heaven provides for its allies, or so I’ve been told.”

At that, Crowley laughed like Dean had told the funniest joke he’d heard in years. Dean felt a trickle of unease, as sour as bile, run into his heart, but he couldn’t say why.

“Is _that_ what they told you? Ah,” said Crowley, wiping his eye with his sleeve, “Well. I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.”

The impulse to defend Castiel sprang up from nowhere, and was just as quickly quashed down. He barely knew the guy. And anyway, there was no point in giving Crowley any more information than was absolutely necessary.

In the background, far away, Dean heard a muffled pounding noise. Probably shelling. He turned his attention back to Crowley.

“I’d sure feel a whole lot more comfortable keeping Heaven out of your business if I knew exactly what that business was.”

“Same business as everyone else has in these trying times: survival.” He paused, as though considering, then shrugged. “And profit.”

“I’m gonna take a wild guess you’re not talking about gold bullion.” As he spoke, he measured the distance between himself and the throne, his current injuries, whether or not there were wards. He might be able to make the distance and bury the knife in Crowley’s chest before the Hound could react;  and he’d been mauled to death by Hellhounds before—what was once more? At least it would be a break from the noise.

“I’d never refuse any kind of gain, ill-gotten or otherwise,” Crowley said, reaching down to stroke the Hellhound’s head. “But souls are my stock in trade, as I’m sure you know. And,” he added, idly, “don’t bother with the heroic martyr act you’re clearly planning, Dean. I’d snap your legs like kindling before you took two steps.”

That brought Dean up short, but he managed to recover enough to roll his eyes. “You’re not worth the two steps it’d take, pal.”

“I do so love your attempts at wit, Dean. They’re so...American.”

The banging grew louder, and Dean could almost make out what sounded like words.

 _Wait. Benny_.

And what was that? That faint lightning in the air? From the foot of the throne rose a low growl, the sound of metal-on-metal, bone-on-bone and ripping flesh. Dean’s hair stood on end.

He grinned in spite of it. “Better talk quick, if you’re planning on it, because I think this meeting’s going to be adjourned soon.”

“Impossible,” Crowley said, but he sounded rattled.

“Is that so?”

“Juliet, stay. No. _Stay_. There’s a good girl.” Crowley pinched the bridge of his nose. “Dean,” he said, sounding tired. “Consider, if you’re capable, that there are forces at work here...”

“That I can’t _possibly_ understand, yeah. Heard that particular refrain before.” He gestured impatiently. “Look, you want to get one over on the heel who’s been killing your Hounds? Name names. I’ll send ‘em your way. Alive or dead, your choice.”

His own words chilled him. The last time he’d agreed to do a demon’s dirty work, it’d been to climb up off of the Rack. And now here he was, standing on his own two feet, offering again to spill blood.

Maybe he’d never actually gotten up, not completely. Maybe Alistair had been right about him. Maybe this was a hallucination. Maybe...

“Ugh, I can smell your guilty conscience from here.”

Crowley rose and walked over to Dean. Or rather, he approached Dean in a way his mind tried to categorize as ‘walking’. Crowley seemed to slip through invisible spaces in the air, the sound of his footfalls out of time with his steps, as wisps of red smoke trailed behind him. Dean’s hand flexed towards his knife again, but he held still, lifting his chin and hardening his gaze.

“Your boy-friends are inconvenient little beasts, you know that?” Crowley hissed. “And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll rid yourself of the angel as quickly as possible. You think you’re free, Dean? Or maybe you just can’t feel the leash.”

“Fuck you,” Dean said, but couldn’t think of anything to follow it up with.

“Here’s your _intel:_  You’re being conned, conman. Who’s strong enough to summon a Hellhound pack? Me, maybe, but I’m not daft enough to do it when I know they’ll just get slaughtered. So, who else could it be? There’s a question for you. Here’s another: What’s strong enough to kill an angel, hm? Hell’s teeth, I _wish_ it was me, but I don’t have that kind of firepower. No one does.” He smiled. “No one in Hell, anyway.”

“What do you m—”

_Boom._

The noise made Dean drop to a crouch.

“That’s my cue,” Crowley said, backing up and looking toward the door. “Juliet, come.”

“Crowley...”

Crowley made noise of mock-surprise.“All this excitement has made me forget. I wanted to give you a small, ah, token of my esteem.” He held out his hand, and a narrow wooden cigarillo box appeared on his palm. He set it on the ground, out of Dean’s reach.

“What the fuck’s that?”

A second noise, as loud as the first, shook the building.

“Like I said, moron, it’s a gift.” His bitter tone turned sweet again. “Oh, and Dean. I know you’ve got your marching orders, but maybe you could request a few days of leave. Maybe in Sainte-Solange? It’s lovely at this time of year. The tarte tatin at La Faucille Inn is just to die for.” He straightened his cravat. “And now, _a bientot.”_

Dean sprang upright. “Now, wait a second!”

But it was too late. A plume of red smoke rose from the floor where Crowley had been, reeking of sulfur.

Dean turned his head away from the smell, just in time to see the door buckle and give way. It had grown dark while he’d been in here, and so he watched a shadowy shape resolve itself into something solid. No wait. That was _Benny_ , sliding across the floor on his knees, hurtling forward like he’d been shot from a cannon, bellowing like a picked bull, with his rifle at the ready.

He skidded to a stop with his bayonet point only inches from Dean’s stomach.

The ensuing silence probably only lasted seconds, but from where Dean stood, a hair's breadth from having his kidneys skewered, it felt very long.

Benny always kept both eyes open when shooting, and so they found themselves staring at each other, dumbly. He looked wildly around the room for a moment. Then, seeing that they were alone, Benny lowered his rifle.

“Hey there, Chief,” he said, panting.

“Uh, hi, Benny.” Dean took a delicate half-step back, just in case.

Dean helped him to his feet, both of them grunting with effort, and then bent to pick up the cigarillo box Crowley had left. He put it in his coat pocket; he’d opened an esoteric box without taking the necessary steps before, and he wasn’t ready to do it again. It was a mistake you only made once, one way or another.

“Where’d that weaselley fucker go?” Benny asked. “You, uh...” He made a slicing motion across his throat.

“Didn’t get the chance.”

Benny’s eyes widened in frank surprise.“Outnumbered?”

“Just him. Well, and his mutt.”

“Hm. You need a medic?”

“Nah. Nothing a whiskey and a shave won’t fix.”

“I don’t know, brother, you look a mite...pale.”

Dean laughed until the gravel in his throat made him cough. Probably his gasmask needed to be refitted. “Benny, there ain’t a pill invented yet for what’s wrong with me.”

“What about Castiel?”

“What about him?” Dean asked, feeling pricked.

“Maybe he could help. Say what you want about that crazy aunt of yours, but he ain’t useless.”

Dean laughed again, and kept the cough at bay this time. “Yeah?”

“Personality of a mule, mind you, but...I’d rather have him on my side.” He smiled, in a private sort of way that Dean wasn’t used to seeing. Benny turned his attention to the rest of the room, taking in deep breaths to scent the air, and he almost passed for nonchalant when he said: “And he’s taken quite a shine to you, I reckon.”

Dean frowned, first at Benny’s face, then at Benny’s back as he moved toward the spot where Crowley’s throne had been. It was now a pile of mangled machinery; Dean saw part of a tank tread, but he couldn’t place the rest. A threshing machine, maybe.  

“How do you figure?” he asked.

Benny poked at the machinery with his bayonet. “Call it intuition,” he said, without turning around.

Dean resisted the urge to press the issue by changing the subject. “I, uh. I didn’t spike him, or the Hound,  but I did get a name out of him.”

Benny knelt down and picked up a small cylindrical object from a battered side table. A syringe, with red residue clinging to its sides. As Dean watched, he pushed the plunger down, until a drop settled on his finger, and then tested it with his tongue.

“Ugh, Benny. Really?”

“Blood, brother.”

“Human?”

Benny shook his head. “No,” he said, slowly. “Demon, I think. But it’s laced with...” He dragged his tongue along his teeth. “Maybe it _is_ human? Whatever it is, it’s got what my mama would have called an _unpleasant bouque_ t.” He set the syringe down, and stood. “So what’s this fella’s name, then, seeing as you spent so long in here charming it out of him?”  
“Crowley,” Dean said, longing to punch something. “His name’s Crowley.”

“The Crossroads demon?”

Dean yelped like a scalded cat and turned toward the sound. But it was only Castiel, standing close enough for Dean to count his eyelashes. If he were inclined to do so. Which he wasn’t. “ _Damn_ it, Cas! Don’t sneak up on me like that.” Dean took a step back.

“Apologies,” Cas said mildly, with a quick sweep of his uncounted lashes. But the sternness returned almost at once to his voice. “This demon. A Crossroads demon, you said.”

“According to him, he’s the King of the Crossroads,” said Dean.

“Mm. The operative phrase being _according to him_. Then again, maybe he’s pulled a coup. There’s unrest in Hell.” He looked thoughtful. “Though, in fairness, there frequently is, so I usually leave it to my lieutenants to deal with.”  
“Oh,” said Dean, “you’re _that_ kind of Brass, huh?”

“I’m not any sort of alloy.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “I mean, you’re the kind of officer that likes to sit in his tent drinking sherry while the doughboys get themselves blown up, huh?”

Cas narrowed his eyes. “I lead the charge into Hell,” he said. “An act not attempted since just after the Fall.” He moved close into Dean’s space again. “An act I still bear the scars from. I’d never ask any of my soldiers to do something I’m not prepared to do myself.”

Dean swallowed and nodded. It was a tiny movement, at odds with the shock wave that was currently going through him, like the faint rattle of a teaspoon against a saucer spoke of a distant bomb.

“Sure, you’re a real peach,” said Benny, laughing, bleeding the tension out of the room.

Cas looked pleased at that, with a slight upturn at the corner of his mouth, and Dean felt a mix of jealousy and confusion. When had Cas’ face become so familiar to him that Dean could recognize when he was pleased? And why would he be jealous of Benny, of all people?

There was no time to pursue those questions, because Cas had some of his own. “And the Hellhounds? Did he admit to summoning them? And to what ends?”

“No,” Dean said, sourly. “He was pretty adamant that he wasn’t the one with the dog whistle.”

But instead of looking aggravated at his inability to play interrogator, as Dean expected, Cas seemed startled. “Only a very powerful denizen of Hell would be strong enough to....” He looked away, with a sharp, calculating look. “He claims to be a King?”

“Of the Crossroads.”

“The Crossroads...” Cas said, and though he was solid and real, he didn’t seem fully present. “A vassal state—they all are, in Hell—but one of the most important. Quite possibly the most.”

“So?” Dean asked.

“So,” Cas said, as though he were sizing up something bigger than him, “he could be lying. About any of it. But, if he’s now the King of the Crossroads, as he says, then he’s one of the few demons with the power to call together a pack. If he’s not doing it then the question remains: who is?”

“Well, he’s lying or he’s telling the truth,” said Dean. “Either way, we got problems.”

“Mm,” Benny and Cas said in unison.

“Nah, that ain’t the half of it,” Dean said. _Christ_ , he just wanted to sit down with a book for the next two hundred years. “According to Crowley, demons aren’t offing your brothers, Cas. That’s not Hell’s doing. He seemed pretty disappointed by that, mind, so he’s probably telling the truth.”

That earned Dean a blunt, incredulous look. “He’s not summoning the Hounds,” Cas said slowly, “and he’s denying any infernal involvement with the deaths of my siblings.”

“Seems that way.” Dean felt a pang of sympathy as he watched Cas grappling with something he couldn’t seem to understand. Dean was more than familiar with the feeling. He gripped Cas’ shoulder, hoping he’d see it for the companionable gesture it was. “But hey, he might be lying, right?”

Cas looked briefly at Dean’s hand, but didn’t seem to register any particular feeling about it, so Dean decided to leave it there a while longer.

“He may well be,” Cas agreed, “and, indeed, probably is. But there are enough consistencies in what you’ve said that I may have to do some reconnaissance work.”

“Reconnaissance work?” Dean asked, surprised. He caught Benny looking at him—at where he was still holding onto Cas, and at their slowly shrinking personal space—and quickly dropped his hand. It felt strange and hot to the touch, and he flexed it at his side, where Benny couldn’t see.

“My superiors will expect a report,” Cas said. “And this is a...vexing issue.”

“Wait a minute, you’re telling me you could do recon all along and you sent Dean and me out instead?”

“I had reasons,” Cas snapped. “Not least of which was the fact that that this place was heavily warded in Old Enochian.”

“What’s that mean?” Dean asked.

“It means I couldn’t get in,” said Cas, sounding irritated. “At least not until there was a crack in the wards. Which Corporal Lafitte provided.”

Benny whistled, a long drawn out note. “Those wards were like nothing I’ve ever felt before. Just as well the Kaiser doesn’t get his hands on those things. Nearly broke every bone in my goddamned body, too.”

Dean stared at him. He seemed fine. In fact, better than fine. Beyond the muddied and frayed clothes, he looked clear-eyed and healthy, with not a scratch.

“I already said thank you,” Cas said, though he didn’t seem particularly angry.

Benny laughed. “Nah, I’d say we’re square.”

“How’s that?” Dean asked, feeling several steps behind. “And how’d you get in here, anyway, if those wards were so tough?”

For some reason, Benny seemed almost abashed. “Well, it was his idea,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.

Cas looked stricken, like Sam used to when Dean tattled on him for eating the sugar cubes in Missouri’s pantry.“I, uh. I don’t technically _need_ all of my blood,” Cas said, as though that explained anything. “Or, really, any blood, I suppose, since I can just make more.”

“Wait, what?”

Benny sighed. “I couldn’t break through those wards on my own,” he said. “Weren’t just angel wards, you understand.”

“I don’t,” said Dean, “but go on.”

“I needed a, uh, an assist to get through the first set of wards.”

“So I gave him one,” interjected Cas.

“You gave him...you gave him your blood?”

“Now, I know you don’t like it when I go, um, drinking from the tap...” Benny said, with a placating gesture.

“In fairness, I decanted it into a vial first...”

Dean laughed, ignoring the slightly hysterical undercurrent in it, which brought his companions up short. “Out of everything that’s happened to me this year— _today_ —you think I’m gonna get mad about a little....fluid exchange between friends?” He winced as he heard his own words. “That is to say...forget it.” He grabbed Benny and pulled him into a hug.

Benny let out a reassured laugh of his own, and Cas watched them with a careful, curious expression. As they pulled away from each other, Dean let the wave of his relief crest into recklessness and caught hold of Cas, wrapping his arms around him and resting his chin on Cas’ shoulder. Cas, for his part, simply stood there, immovable yet strangely warm, like a stone reflecting back the heat of the sun.

 _Alright,_ Dean thought, breaking the hug and trying not to feel disappointed, _hugging isn’t one of his skills._ Then again, maybe his true-form didn’t even _have_ arms. Maybe it was just a series of feathers and teeth or—

Dean’s mind slid away from that thought so quickly it almost gave him vertigo.

“Well,” he caught Benny saying as he refocused on their surroundings, “I have to say, I ain’t looking to recreate the experience, but the taste wasn’t half bad. Better than that demon-human junk Crowley was hitting.”

“Thank...you,” Cas said, though he didn’t seem all that sure. Then: “Sorry, did you say ‘demon-human junk’, as in...”

Benny winced. “Bitterer than my mother-in-law on my wedding day.”  

Cas clutched at Benny’s arm. “Blood? Demon-human blood? Where?”

“Ow, watch your claws,” Benny groused. He pulled his arm free. “That table,” he said, inclining his head, “over there by that pile of junk. There’s a syringe on it. Fancy, too. Harrods, I’d bet.”

“What do you know about Harrods?” Dean asked, watching Cas move with determined tread to the table behind them.

“Chief, I haven’t always been a rogue and a wanderer.”

“I find that hard to be—Oh, _come_ on, not you too!” For Cas had found the syringe and, after eyeing it like it had beaten him at pool, he pushed a few drops of blood onto his finger, which he then put in his mouth.

Cas didn’t bother to look at him. Instead he curled his lip, almost a snarl, and put the syringe back on the table. “This is bad.”

“See?” Benny asked. “What’d I tell you? Awful.”

“No,” Cas said, crossly. “This blood. It’s...Special.”

“Special?” Dean asked, hearing the capital _S_ in the word. Something in it made his skin prickle.

“Special,” Cas repeated. “As in...Azazel. You remember him?”

“I remember shooting him right in his ugly yellow eye,” Dean said, feeling every muscle tighten. “You tellin’ me he’s not dead? I _saw_ that bastard disintegrate. I...”

“He’s dead,” Cas assured him. “For which Heaven owes you its thanks. But, as your father suspected, Sam wasn’t the only child Azazel took an interest in. There were many more. He called them his Special Children.”

“Wait, what?” Dean exclaimed. “Dad never mentioned that.”

Cas looked surprised. “Your father was well known for his ability to keep secrets,” he said, “but I don’t see what the benefit would have been, keeping this one from you.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter now, except that this blood bears the trace of Azazel. Azazel and...another demon, an old one, but one I can’t pinpoint.”

“So this is...this is _Sam’s_ blood?”

“It’s...” Cas hesitated. “It could have been transported here,” he said quietly, “but the molecules haven’t been quantumly disarranged.”

“Okay, I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about,” Dean interrupted. “Is this Sam’s, or not?”

“It’s possible,” Cas said, through clenched teeth. “But it shouldn’t be. Dean, Heaven took great pains to keep all the Special Children as far away from the Front as possible. _None_ of them should be here. Especially not...” But here, he cut himself off, flinching, as though he’d been stung.

“What?” Dean asked, alarmed by that, and, if he was honest, by everything.  

“Something is going on here,” Cas said, “that I don’t understand.” He turned to Dean, with a thunderhead forming in his gaze. “But I intend to.”

“That’s...that’s good,” Dean said, weakly.

“Did he give you any other information? Any clues or suggestions?”

“No,” said Dean. “Well. Maybe. I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“He told me to request leave. Somewhere called, uh...Saint. Saint Sole? Saint Salome?”

“Sainte-Solange?” Benny asked, slowly.

“That’s the one.”

“It’s..there ain’t much there, Dean,” Benny said. “We passed through it about a week back. It’s probably got ten houses, a chapel, and that’s it.”

Dean frowned. “Does it have an inn?”

“I...it might? There was a farmhouse. That might be big enough to hold some people, but I can’t imagine they’re doing much business.” He looked at Dean strangely. “Are you really planning on following a demon’s advice?”

“Benny, look around you,” Dean said, “all the advice these days is bad.”

“Well, brother, that’s the truth but...”

“Very well,” Cas cut in. “I’ll transport you there.”  
“No!” Dean said, scrambling back. “No. Uh. I can’t just...go. They’ll mark me as a deserter and I don’t feel like facing a firing squad.”

“Ah,” Cas said. “In that case, we’ll go speak to your superior.”

Dean scoffed. “And tell them _what_ , exactly? What’s your plan?”

“We’ll...tell your commanding officer that you are on a Heavenly mission, and your commanding officer will give you leave to go to Sainte-Solange.”

“Seriously? You’re going to walk into HQ and tell them the _truth_?”

“Why not?” He looked at Dean with open curiosity. His coat hung askew, which suddenly bothered Dean immensely.

“Beside the fact that they’d try to throw us both in the loony bin?”

Benny laughed, and then shouldered his rifle. “I’ll see you fellas outside.”

“Because we’re humans,” Dean said, grabbing the lapels of Castiel’s coat and fussing with it until it hung straight. “And when humans want something really, really, badly, they lie.”

“Why?”

“Because, that’s how you become President.” Dean grinned at Cas, watching him try to parse his words, and then nod as though he took  it on faith that Dean was right. “Come on,” he said, leading him outside by the elbow. “Just steal the necessary papers for me. I’ll forge a couple of signatures and we’ll be in beautiful Sainte-Solange in no time.”

* * *

When Cas had come and gone—bearing the forged papers to Headquarters and back faster than Dean could blink—Dean thought about his next move. Cas had promised only that he’d contact Dean once he’d completed his own reconnaissance work, and Dean wondered if that meant the open invitation for prayer was closed. The thought of it made him sad, and the thought of _that_ made him irritated.

When they’d parted, though, Cas had given him a gift: a slice of soft white bread and coarse pâté, and a bunch of heavy purple grapes, still cold.

“Where’d you get this?” Dean had asked, even as he took an enormous bite.

“Stole it from the General’s table.”

Dean nearly choked. “You _what_?”

“It seemed to me,” Cas had said, with a faint smile, “that he was, as you say, _that_ kind of Brass, and that you need it more.”

“Thanks, Cas.”

“Of course.”

Dean popped the last of the grapes in his mouth now, savoring their dark, sweet flavor, and held up the cigarillo box. His purification supplies were limited, but he had chalk and charcoal, and a bit of holy water. It would have to do. He donned his gloves and gas mask, just to be sure, and opened the box.

The picture on the inside of the lid was painted in the bright Havana style and, Dean realized after a moment, showed a pair of swooningly naked women draped across an equally naked Crowley.

“Ew.”

He put the box down. Nothing demonic had leaped out at him, so he removed his gloves and mask and removed the tissue paper covering the contents.

“What the—”

Cartridges. Twelve of them, silver and smelling faintly of myrrh and sage, with pentagrams etched into the casings. And a note. Dean picked up and read it, with his heartbeat roaring in his ears.

 _Only an idiot would make just thirteen bullets,_ it said, in a surprisingly elegant hand, _and Samuel Colt was no idiot. Let’s see if the same can be said for you. Bisous._

“Well,” Dean said, mouth dry, “shit.”

But there was more.

_PS, give my love to the giant baby._

Dean swore silently. _He can’t possibly mean—_

He fed the letter to the candle flame, and tried not to inhale the smoke. He slept that night with the Kurdish knife under his pillow, and dreamed of kissing, and of slitting throats.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional warnings for: syringes, needle sharing (kind of), suggestions of shooting up.
> 
> So, hi everyone! I meant to have this done and posted in November but...my house in sold in November, and I had two weeks to move. To another country. Where I only speak the language a little bit! So, I did that, and then my chronic lung condition decided this would be an excellent time make its presence felt. 
> 
> But now it is almost spring, and I can mostly function (still can't speak much of the language, but I'm learning), and it feels good to be writing again. 
> 
> Thank you all very much for your patience. I hope you're doing well!


	9. Hail! Hail! The Gang's All Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean meets more familiar faces, and his relationship with Castiel goes somewhere unexpected.

_No one ever tells you how much of war involves waiting for paperwork approval,_  thought Dean, sourly. Hunting was nasty, brutal business, but at least it wasn’t _bureaucracy._  The leave request for Sainte-Solange was probably languishing on some drunken colonel’s desk, blotted with red wine rings and smeared with mustache wax. Cas grew impatient—even more impatient than Dean, which was saying something—and kept finding inopportune times to appear behind Dean and pester him about its progress.

“I don’t understand why you won’t let me just _compel_ the approving officer to stamp the papers,” Cas said, from two inches away.

“Cas,” said Dean, with water dripping from his chin, “we’ve talked about this. One, personal space—”

“Apologies,” Cas said, stepping back.

“And two, we’re neck-deep in fighting right now. Do you know how suspicious it’d look if I suddenly got leave right after requesting it?”  
Cas did not look at all placated.

“We don’t have the luxury of time, Dean.”

“Hey, look, I get it, alright? I do. I’ve never been good with the wait-and-see.” He sighed tiredly, and finished drying his face with some absorbent dressing that one of the nurses had given him.

“This...this water isn’t fit for human consumption,” Cas noted, picking up the bowl that Dean had used and sloshing the contents like he was panning for gold. Disgusting, filthy gold.

“You ain’t lying.” He took the bowl from Cas’ hand, brushing their fingers together as he did, and then threw the water out of the tent door, where it joined the other mud. “Ran out of purification tablets three days ago, so we boil the hell out of it, if we can. Beer’s even better, if you can get it.”

“And if you can’t?”

Dean laughed, harsh. “Pray you don’t get cholera.”

Castiel’s lip curled, whether in anger or distaste, Dean couldn’t tell.

“Where is it drawn from?”

“Who knows?” Dean tried to fix his hair into some kind of acceptable style, using half a barroom mirror nailed to a post. “The creek’s got more lead in it than it’s got water, now. And who knows what else.”

“That’s your only source?”

“Until the next water delivery comes.” He looked at Cas appraisingly. “Why? You don’t even need to drink.”

Cas looked...hurt? Irritated? “That’s not—” He made a noise in the back of his throat, almost a growl, and then vanished.

Dean rolled his eyes, but before they’d even finished their orbit, Cas was back.

“What...where did you go?”

“To secure potable water for you and your men. You’re right, there was a remarkable amount of contaminants in there.”

“What? What did you do?”

“I purified the creek and shored up the bank against erosion.”

“You were gone...ten seconds.”

Cas shrugged, as if to say _and?_ so Dean just nodded, feeling a little bit like his head would fall  off and roll away like a grenade.

“Thanks, Cas,” he managed, then found himself smiling in a way that was dangerously close to fond. To his surprise, Cas returned his look, and something warm and obscure seemed to shimmer in the air between them. It reminded Dean of when he was very young, of his mother’s bright hand with its candleglow halo, reaching into his crib to smooth his hair. Or no, that wasn’t right, he couldn’t possibly remember that. No, maybe it felt like a different kind of warmth, with something of a first-kiss awkwardness lingering on its edges. Dean licked his lips.

“You’re welcome,” said Cas.

Wait, they were still staring at each other. _Fuck._ And now Cas seemed to be watching his mouth, with an alarmingly soft look in his eye. _Fuck._

“Well, anyway,” Dean said, around the knot that was slowly tying itself in his throat. “I...have to...”

“Yes, I should...” Cas said, looking down, suddenly awkward.

“I’m due for patrol and...”

“Zachariah will want a report on...”

They spoke hastily, tripping over their own words, and each other’s.

“I’ll tell the CO that he should send someone out to look at the water supply again.”

“...how the plans for your journey to Sainte-Solange are coming.” Cas took a deep breath and nodded, as though he was steeling himself for something unpleasant. “If you could, um. Not mention what I’ve done here. If anyone asks...feign ignorance. Please.”

“Sure,” Dean said, slowly, feeling a growing sense of unease.

“Thank you.”

“Cas. Wait,” Dean said, laying hold of Cas’ shoulder before he could disappear. “What happens if the Brass finds out?”

Cas looked away. “Standard disciplinary procedures for someone of my rank.” He coughed. “I assume.”

Dean relaxed a little.  “Oh, I see, you’re gunning for a promotion.” He nodded. _Putting the spit and polish on the old resume._

Cas squinted. “I suppose.” Then, gave Dean a sidelong glance. “Actually, if you could...”

“What?”

“I understand you don’t want to arouse suspicion,” Cas said carefully. “But if you could give me some...indication of when you’re likely to get leave that would be...helpful to me.”

“Buddy, I don’t know,” Dean said. “The Brass works in—”

“If you say ‘mysterious ways’...”

They both laughed, Dean loudly, throwing his head back, and Cas much more quietly, as though he was unsure of how to do so.

“Yeah, well, we’ve got that in common, at least.” Dean grimaced. “Okay. New plan. We give it another three days, and then you can, uh... _compel_ to your heart’s content.” Cas’ eyes flashed with something akin to triumph, and Dean reviewed what he’d just said. “I mean, the kind of compelling the doesn’t involve, uh, rivers of blood or plagues of locusts.”

“Understood,” Cas said gravely. Then: “Theatrics were my brother’s department, anyway.”

With that, he disappeared.

“Yeah,” said Dean to the empty air, with the residue of a smile still on his lips. “You didn’t inherit that trait at _all._ ”

* * *

The deadline arrived, but Cas didn’t.

No one got cholera, but twelve men fell to a sudden and vicious wave of Spanish ‘flu—the same strain that had ravaged Camp Funston almost a year ago, and had cut through swathes of people in the intervening months—and a dozen more were otherwise out of commission. The rest of the troops were stretched thin, waiting for reinforcements, waiting for a break in the German line, waiting for anything that might offer relief.

Now, Dean was practically asleep in his boots, lulled by the percussive lullaby of mortar fire, and the high, wistful sound of “Annie Laurie” played on a penny flute somewhere in the dugout. Every now and then, a hoarse choir of voices chimed in for the refrain. John had always loved this song.

He’d been fighting a fever since yesterday. The ache in his joints had changed from one of cold and fatigue to one tinged with ague.

Dean had traded some of his birthday cigarettes for clove ones with a French infantryman. He cut them with cannabis he stole from an unattended saddle bag. Bobby and Sam would give him grief for not going to the infirmary tent immediately, but it was John he thought of as he struck a match. The sulfurous hit made him wince, even with all the other assaults on his senses.

_The only thing more important than finishing a hunt is keeping Sam safe._

He inhaled.

 _You can get sick when we’re done_.

He exhaled, grateful for the numbness creeping into his throat and lungs. Then he picked up his rifle and started walking.

The tin flute piped up with “Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag”, so he turned and  walked the other way.

A blast, louder than the others, cut the music in two. Dean wheeled around and ran back the way he’d come. The general din seemed to mass around him like a fog as he scrambled to lift a support beam that had toppled, pinning some unfortunate bastard in the mud. The ground was treacherously slippery beneath him, but he threw his entire weight against it, and felt it move. Someone was shoving him out of the way, and he went, his body a hot-cold mosaic of frustration and exhaustion. The cigarette never left his lips.

There were hands on his face, warm and dark, and he looked up into a pair of strangely familiar eyes.

He reached into the sluggish waters of his brain and pulled up a name.

 _Victor Henriksen_ . Dean closed his eyes. _Shit._ The cigarette fell into the mud.

It was likely, even probable, that Victor didn’t recognize him, covered in ash and dirt and blood, with his helmet askew. But it was also likely—about as likely as mortar rounds falling on their heads—that Victor would realize the man whose pupils he was currently inspecting belonged to one Dean Smith, alias Douglas Valentino, alias Doctor D.W. Fairbanks, alias Elroy McGillicuddy, also known as the man he’d been hunting down for murder since that shifter case in ‘13.

“Fine,” Dean snarled, waving him away. “I’m fine.”

“No need for that, Corporal,” Victor said, irritated and overly formal. “I assure you, I’m trained.”

Dean’s eyes widened. “No, no. I mean. Don’t waste your time on me. Thank you, uh. Lieutenant. Excuse me.” And he got up, graceless as a colt, and jogged away.

 _That’ll be the reinforcements_ , he thought, as he looked at the convoy of vehicles and horses that was trickling in to their location. French, certainly—at least they’d gotten rid of those ridiculous red trousers, the poor sons of bitches—but those other accents were all-American.  He squinted against the fever and head trauma. A long line of black men in tan uniforms. Then his eyes hit on an armored car—a Peugeot 146, battered to hell, with half its paint missing—emblazoned with a purple shield and white lightning bolt. Underneath were the words _Power to Strike._

 _God damn_ , Dean thought, feeling a touch of astonishment. _It’s the 370th Infantry Regiment._

He didn’t imagine they’d be stuck in with Dean’s unit—at least not for long. The lines of segregation were stark and unsettling, even here, in a way that never quite made sense. On the one hand, it was a shame, because they needed all the help they could get, and the 370th was as good as anyone could ask for. On the other hand, it meant that Victor would soon be somewhere else.

Now if only Cas would show up. Dean had been sending out sporadic, rapid-fire prayers all day, each one more profanity-filled than the last. He reached into his pocket for another medicinal cigarette, and realized he’d left them next to his bedroll. He groaned, the fever and exhaustion, the threat of demons and the reality of angels, the shock of seeing Victor—all of it crashed in on him at once. And now this. It was like a tiny pebble causing a swollen river to overflow. He looked skyward, and wept silent, hot tears. “I can’t do this. I can’t.”

The sound of wings alerted him to the fact that he had company.

“Dean.”

Dean clenched his eyes shut at the sound of Castiel’s voice, willing his tears back. He felt Cas’ hand on his shoulder, and slowly turned his head. Cas watched him with that intent expression of his, the one that made Dean feel like his soul was being peeled away and rearranged. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Son of a bitch.”

“I heard your prayers,” Cas said.

“Yeah? Where the hell’ve you been, then?”

Cas’ eyes slid away from him, and he dropped his hand. “I...was in a meeting.”

“A _meeting_?”

“Zachariah and Michael had...concerns about my methods. They felt I needed reminding of, um, standard operating procedures.”

“Sounds fun.”

“It most assuredly was not. But. It was necessary.”

Something about the way Cas talked about it, the tight uptick of his jaw, the middle-distance stare, made Dean’s skin prickle. “Sounds like they really gave you an earful.”

Cas inhaled sharply. “Nothing can compromise this mission, Dean. Certainly not one of the Host. _Especially_ not the commander of the garrison.” It almost sounded like he was reciting from a script.

“That’d be you.”

“That’d be me.”

“Well that’s...”

Dean’s dizziness returned, and the ground rushed up toward his fading vision.

When he came to, the ground was much further away. About six feet up, in fact. Something vice-like had clamped around his middle. For a brief, panicked moment, his febrile brain sunk back into Hell, but shortly the world resolved itself to nothing more than the fields of France. Which was close enough. He turned his neck, stiff with fever, and felt his face brush against slightly rough fabric. A trench coat.

“Cas,” he rasped. “Are you...carrying me?”

Though Dean couldn't see it, he could practically feel Cas roll his eyes. “Yes, Dean.”

“Uh.” Dean tried to imagine the logistics. From the looks of him, Cas probably outweighed him by a few pounds—he was sturdy, and broad-shouldered—but only by a few. Yet he held Dean across his shoulders without a trace of strain, one hand held warm and steady across his back. “You want to put me down?”

“You’d rather lie in the mud?”

“No! That is to say, thanks. I mean. Aren’t I heavy?”

“What? No. You’re very...portable.” He dipped his head, hiding his expression from Dean.

“Oh,” Dean said.

“You’ve also got...some kind of illness.”

“I...yeah. My company got hit with Spanish ‘Flu. I’m just trying to tough it out.”

“Spanish ‘Flu,” Cas murmured, sounding suspicious. “Hmm.”

All at once, the hand across Dean’s back grew warmer, then hot, and a blue-white heat flared through his body, against the suffocating grey haze of his fever, burning it away like sea fog. Dean seized up, and then went lax. His body practically sang with relief.

“Fuck.” He let out a long breath, mentally running a head-to-check. His attention caught on his shoulder, where an echo of the bright fire lingered in the shape of a handprint. He opted not to mention it. It was only after he’d done all this that he realized Cas was still holding him; almost against his will he grew aware of the solid, real presence of Cas’ body. He moved his hand so that it brushed against Cas’ thumb and up his wrist. His mind cheerfully supplied another set of images: a long unbuttoning, his mouth on a bare shoulder and a bared throat.

“Um.” Dean said. “You can put me down now.”

He staggered a little when his feet touched the earth. He hoped his regret at being uhanded was hidden from Cas, at least, since he couldn’t hide it from himself. “Thank you,” he said, wincing at how unsteady he sounded. He coughed and straightened his uniform.

“Well,” he said, once he’d gathered himself into a semblance of coherence. “Sainte-Solange?”

“Yes,” Castiel said. “My brother made...arrangements. Your leave papers should be arriving this afternoon.”

“Arrangements.”

“Raphael appeared to the relevant officer in a pillar of smokeless fire and burnt his eyes out.”

“Uh.”

“Then he restored his eyes and ordered him to sign the paperwork.”

“Not big on subtlety, huh.”

“Raphael is the most diplomatic of all the archangels.”

“Of course he is.” Dean shuddered. “So what happened to General Oedipus?”

“He went insane.” Cas looked a little abashed. “Raphael allowed me to alter his memory, after some persuading, so the effects shouldn’t be permanent.”

“He sounds like a real peach.” Dean said tightly. “Uh. We might have a small...snag here.”

“Snag?”

“A, a slight one. That's to say... there's a certain man who's been looking for me. A US Marshal by the name of Henriksen.”

“Henriksen.” Castiel frowned so deeply, Dean worried that his face would crack. “The name is... familiar, but I'm...not sure why.”

“Well. He's decided to drop in and pay us a visit.”

“And that's a problem.”

“Considering the fellow thinks I murdered three people and wants to see me swing for it, yeah, chum, I'd say it's a problem.” Dean adjusted his helmet and wiped some of the lingering dirt from his face. “Luckily I don’t think he’s recognized me yet, but the sooner we can get out of this joint, the better.”

“I understand. How will you avoid him?”

Dean smiled, or at least tried to. “No-Man’s Land’s probably a safe bet.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“No, Cas that’s...” He grimaced. “That day’s coming, but it’s not today.”

“Very well,” Cas said. “Ask when the time comes.”

“Sure,” Dean said. “Sure.”

* * *

The rest of the morning passed as well as could be expected. There was no lull in the shelling, but it seemed thinner somehow. Maybe they were finally running out of ammo. Dean kept a weather eye on Victor's company, moving away as best as possible along the trench walls, occasionally diving into a cubby hole when anyone wearing a Lieutenant's bar got too near.

At noon came a sortie, and he emptied an entire clip into one man’s chest, who jerked like a puppet, and then fell.

He leaned against the trench wall to catch his breath, if it could be caught, and realized he was being watched by a pair of quick, thoughtful dark eyes. _Shit_ . He turned away abruptly, looking for a way out between all the other men, but the ankle-deep mud slowed him down. He debated falling in it, face-first, just to get a bit of camouflage, but there was the very real risk he’d contract some kind of brand new disease that he didn’t feel like dealing with. He opted to stay still, as still as a tin soldier, and hope Victor didn’t see him. He knew it was the logic of prey animals, but at least it was _some_ kind of logic.

Victor didn’t approach him, but he also never got quite out of Dean’s periphery. Slowly, the soldiers on either side of Dean moved elsewhere in the trench, talking of the weather, or of wine they’d drink when the war was done, or girls they’d fuck or marry, or of going to the movies on the trolley.

He edged along with them, keeping his head down and his eyes fixed on the frayed and soiled edge of his coat. He hoped to God, or whatever passed for Him these days, that there’d be some kind of laundrette in Sainte-Solange. Or at least water clean enough to do the job, now that the snow melt was gone.

Dean didn't dare look to see if he'd shaken Victor's hound-like presence until he reached his bivouac. He was bunking alone, after his last bed-mate got taken down by...he couldn't remember if it was a sniper or septicemia. Anyway, Dean was pretty sure he survived, if not all in one piece.

Around him, men were eating. He heard the clink of cans being opened and the dull scrape of forkfuls being taken into reluctant mouths.  They were more subdued here, and the only talk—when there was any talk at all—was of the next time they might be going over the top. But Victor was nowhere to be seen, and neither was anyone else from the 370th. Dean sagged against his rifle in relief.

It wouldn’t last long, though.

“Corporal Winchester.” Dean groaned inwardly, but his newly-healed muscles snapped him to attention automatically.

 _Oh_. It was Zeddmore.

“What?” Dean asked, hoping to imbue the word with as much impatience as he possibly could.

“There’s a...a man who’d like a word with you, sir.”

“A man?” The vagueness of it was troubling. Was it Cas? Or, worse, Crowley in a different meat suit? Or...

“From the 370th.”

Dean went cold all over. “Did this man from the 370th have a name?” he asked. It was a stupid question, but stupid questions were sometimes all he had.

“Henderson or Hendricks...or something like that. He’s a Lieutenant, anyway.” Zeddmore shrugged and walked away, in the direction of the infirmary tent.

“Hey, uh, Zeddmore.”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks. Um. I hope Spengler is feeling better.”

Zeddmore blinked in surprise. “I’ll tell him.” Then: “It’s probably going to leave a nasty scar.”

“Shrapnel does that.” He cleared his throat. “But it’ll make for an interesting story.”

“I guess it will.” Zeddmore smiled wanly and headed off.

Dean scrambled around for something else to do, some way to put off facing Victor.  It was too early in the day for a recon mission. He could wait here for a while, until they needed him somewhere else. But he knew he’d have to pass that way again as soon as Captain Shurley had his leave papers in hand. And if Cas was right, that’d be sometime soon.

There was nothing for it. Dean squared his shoulders and his jaw and, feeling like a man in view of the gallows, went to find Victor.

He didn’t have to go far.

The 370th were clustered together around a Crapouillot, away from the main body of the troops, almost defensively. He didn’t see Victor right away, and slowed to a stop, wondering how best to strike up a conversation. He was running low on cigarettes. Maybe he could ask for some gossip from Chicago, or Pontiac.

While he was debating this, though, Victor saw him. Dean felt the moment he’d been clocked, and tried to make his stance casual. Just taking in the sights.

“Cas,” he muttered, sending a prayer up like a paper lantern, “if you’re listening. Uh. That _snag_ I mentioned earlier just became a _problem._ So you might want to get the show on the road, buddy. Um. Amen.”

The _amen_ had barely left his lips when Victor stopped, giving him a long appraising look. Then, with the barest incline of his head, he walked past Dean and disappeared around a corner. Dean shook his head, allowing himself a brief burst of amusement; he’d definitely done this dance before, though it usually ended much more pleasantly than this was going to; which was a pity—Victor was by any measure a good-looking man. He counted out the seconds until he’d reached a respectable number, and followed.

There was never vacant space in an occupied trench, not really. There was always someone, or something, in the way, taking up room. You learned to get used to it, to block it out as much as possible. You learned to redefine being ‘alone’; otherwise, you ended up with yet another reason to go nuts. And anyway, Dean was used to close quarters, growing up with Sam on the road.

So Dean was more than a little surprised to find himself face-to-face with Victor on an honest-to-god empty stretch of ground. Even the shelling seemed to grow distant.  They might as well have been the last living things on earth as they stared each other down. Dean’s mouth went completely dry.

“Dean Winchester,” Victor said. His voice had a satisfied predatory rumble, like a panther gloating over its kill. “I’ll be damned.”

Dean raised his chin and gave his cockiest smile, the one that usually got him kissed by women and punched in the mouth by lawmen. Or maybe it was the other way around. “Marshal.”

Victor smiled back at him. That part wasn’t unexpected, but the _way_ he smiled knocked Dean’s scripted response from the tip of his tongue, and he did something that John would have clipped his ears for doing: he looked away from the threat. His confusion only overcame him for a second, but a second was long enough. Victor was there, right there, in his space, and Dean braced himself for hand-to-hand combat.

He’d prepared for an uppercut and got an embrace. His mind scrambled for an answer. _Is this a fight?_ He asked himself, panicked. _Are we in a fight?_

But the embrace continued, and the only violence Victor seemed intent on doing was bruising his ribs and slapping his back hard enough to knock the wind from his lungs. Dean’s brain, unable to find any purchase in the current situation, promptly fell into a ravine, and he raised his arms in a halting hug of his own, for lack of any other idea.

Victor laughed, delighted. “It’s good to see you! Glad to see they haven’t shot that handsome head of yours off.”

“Um. Yes,” Dean said. “You...you too. Marshal.”

Victor gave him a wry look. “Marshal? Really? After everything?”

Dean’s brain finally managed to pull itself out of the ravine and plant itself back in his skull, but it had sustained a few bruises.

“What?” he asked. “That is, I don’t...I’m not the kind of man to stand on formality, but, uh, I thought, given our, our history...” He faltered. “You want me to call you, what, _Victor?_ ”

Victor frowned, shaking his head. “I thought we’d moved past this.”

“Moved past...I’m sorry, Mar— _Victor_ , but didn’t you want to see me at the end of a rope not so long ago?”

Victor sighed, looking genuinely wounded, and Dean, for reasons completely unknown, wanted to apologize. “Dean, now, I know it’s been a while, and I’m sorry for that, but I’ve been a little occupied. No need to bring up old grudges.”

“Old...alright.” Dean said. He’d clearly gone insane at some point between Paris and here, and just hadn’t noticed until now. “Alright. Sounds good.”

“How’s Sam?” Victor asked, his eyes crinkling up in good humor again.

“He’s...he’s supposed to be studying.” Dean said, with knees like water and a stomach to match.

“Supposed to be? Heh. That girl Jessica still has him wrapped around her finger, huh? I’d like to meet them one day. Say, what’s the matter? You look...ill. You don’t have the ‘Flu, do you?”

“No, I...” Dean sat down, even though everything in him urged him to keep his feet. “Victor. Um.”

Victor crouched down, looking into Dean’s face.

“I gotta be honest with you, I...haven’t got a clue how you know any of this. I mean to say. I just. Since when are we _friends_?”

Victor rocked back on his heels. “Since when? Since...since Lilith.”

“Who the hell is Lilith?”

Victors mouth thinned into a stern line. He stood without answering, and instead rummaged in his coat, until he withdrew a small silver cross, and then looked sharply at Dean. “ _Christo_ ,” he said. When that got nothing but a startled look, he darted forward and held the cross against Dean’s cheek.

“What...” Dean sputtered. _Oh._ He was running a standard check. “All human,” Dean said, gesturing towards himself. “Unfortunately.”

Victor looked, if anything, more concerned. He put away the cross, but stepped back, away from Dean.

“You really don’t remember? The demon, Lilith?”

“The First Demon? That’s...just a legend.”

“Just a _legend_ ? Tell that to the wives of the deputies she slaughtered, or the mothers of...” He stopped, and his fingers worked at the buttons of his coat, and the fabric of his overshirt. “Does this look like just a _legend_?” He pulled up his undershirt—pristine and white, somehow—and revealed the strong expanse of his torso. Across his heart there stood a Devil’s trap tattoo in blue ink, but Dean barely noticed. He stared at the scars skirting along Victor’s side, claw marks that Dean instantly recognized. He’d had his own set, once upon a time.

“Hellhounds?”

Victor tucked his shirt in roughly, and buttoned his coat, a right and proper soldier again. “That’s right.” He shook his head. “I wondered what happened to you, you know, after it was over.  We hunted her together for almost three weeks, and then you just...disappeared.”

“When was this?” Dean asked, even though he already knew the answer.

“Why, back in ‘15. End of September. But come the end of October, you’d vanished.”

Dean nodded. “The missing month.”

“Hm?”

“The missing month,” Dean repeated, looking down at his swollen and muddied hands. “I remember crawling out of my own grave, and I remember showing up on Bobby’s doorstep. Only there’s a month in between that no one can account for.”

Victor tapped his chin, considering. “Well, I’ve just accounted for it. Or at least some of it.”

Dean tried to corral his thoughts, but they reared and shied away from him, kicking up dust. “How’d we do it?”

“What? Kill Lilith? You used a spell that Sam gave you.”

“Nah, that can’t be right. I didn’t see Sam until November.”

“Damn, you don’t remember a thing do you?” Victor shook his head. “You said he buried you with a vial of his own blood and some kind of...spell that he’d seen in his dreams.”

“Son of a bitch.” Something crashed into place, clumsily, where before there had only been a great grey blank. Sam _had_ asked, as he’d handed back Dean’s amulet, if Dean used the spell and the blood he’d given him. Dean had just looked at him, uncomprehending, half-dead and with the smoke of Hell still smoldering in his lungs, and Sam never brought it up again.

Dean bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted his own blood.

“I’d never seen anything like it. The way her eyes went white.” He shivered, remembering. “And the screaming. And.” He paused, looking troubled. “The laughing.”

“Laughing?”

“She laughed as she...died. Like a sound ripped right out of the Devil himself. I couldn’t sleep for a week. I kept hearing it. Still do, sometimes.”

“I bet,” Dean said, roughly. He’d barely gotten to grips with the fact that he and Victor weren’t adversaries any more, that they were allies—maybe even friends—and a strange bitterness rose up in him. He was jealous of himself, the person who got to know these things, who got to have friends like Victor. But more than that he was angry at whatever, or whoever, took that knowledge from him. He’d been a stranger to himself for so long after his return from Hell. All these years later and mostly all he’d gotten back was things he didn’t like; Victor, he would have liked.

Though he was at least a little glad he didn’t recall the laughter.

“Where are you off to?” Dean asked. “Or are you digging in with us?”

Victor shot him a sidelong look that said, quite plainly, _I’d rather take my chances with the machine guns._ “Nah. We’re attached to the French 59th Infantry Division.  We’re heading out posthaste.”

“Where to?”

Victor’s eyes glittered. “Couldn’t say.”

Dean knew better than to press the subject. “You see much action?” he asked, then amended: “I mean to say, other than...” He gestured out to the world at large.

“I’ve kept myself busy,” Victor said, nodding. “Just before I enlisted, my deputy and I took down an entire vamp nest in Oklahoma. Seven of them in all.”

Dean whistled. “Seven against two?”

“Smoked ‘em out,” Victor said. “And cut them down like wheat as they ran out the door.”

“Ruthless,” Dean said. “I like it.” He might share that idea with Benny, though he had the feeling that Benny might want to use a more personal approach if he ever found his father.

“I thought you might.” Victor grinned and Dean realized how good it felt to be talking shop. It felt almost _normal._

“Say,” Dean began, haltingly, “you, uh, you ever come across any angels?”

Victor laughed, a quiet, solid sound that Dean instantly liked. “Angels? No. Hellhounds, only one, thank God. Couple of demons here and there, but no angels.” He shrugged. “Unless you count that one strange fellow who kept arriving unannounced to argue with you.”

Something else tried to crash into place then, but wouldn’t fit. He stood, and reached for Victor’s elbow.

“What...strange fellow?”

“Oh, that’s right,” Victor said. “Hm. He was...about my height? Dark hair, blue eyes. Always seemed in need of a shave and a tailor.”

“And this, this _angel_. Did he have a name?”

“Casper? No.” Victor looked away in thought. “Castile? No, that’s soap. _Castiel._ That was it. He said once that he was an angel.”

Dean hadn’t let go of Victor’s elbow, and knew he was gripping too hard—hard enough to bruise.

“Castiel,” Dean said faintly, so faintly that he might have thought it.

Victor reached for Dean’s chin, holding his face steady in his cool hand, and looked appraisingly at Dean’s eyes. “Are you sure you’re alright? Because...”

Victor never got a chance to finish his thought. He looked over Dean’s shoulder, and his face registered several emotions at once: surprise, alarm, confusion, and something like recognition. Dean freed himself from Victor’s hold and spun around, ready to throw a punch. He realized a half-second too late that the person standing behind him was Castiel, and his fist connected with what looked like a jaw, but what felt like an iron wall.

Cas’ head turned, but he gave no other sign of having felt the blow. Dean, though, felt it as his knuckles spiderwebbed with cracks, and bent forward, clutching at his hand. “Cas,” he gasped, looking up in horror as Cas reached out, pressing his fingers against Victor’s forehead. “Wait.” Cas’ eyes flickered an unearthly color, flooded with lightning, but at the sound of Dean’s voice, he stopped.

Victor gasped, stumbling back. Dean barely caught him before he fell, and was hit with his whole weight at once.  
“Cas, what the hell did you do to him?”

“I rendered him unconscious,” Cas said, sounding uncertain. “You were fighting.”

“We weren’t _fighting,_ ” Dean said, exasperated, straining to set Victor down without hurting him. “He’s...we’re...we’re friends.”

“But, your prayer...” Cas said, stepping in and taking Victor, as easy as picking up a doll. “And then you called my name, just now.”

“I know, but...” Dean cursed inwardly, clenching his fists and trying to get his bearings. “Cas, he knows me. He knows, he knows _us_.”

“Us?”

“Yes, dumbass, as in _you_ and _me_ , us.”Cas was confounded, or at least looked that way, but  Crowley’s voice curled insinuatingly in his memory. _Maybe you just can’t feel the leash._

“I’m—I’m sorry, Dean.” He didn’t specify for what. Maybe he didn’t know.

“God, just...They’re going to be looking for him any minute now, and it’s going to look like I assaulted one of their officers!”

“He’ll wake up in half an hour,” Cas said. “There won’t be any lasting damage. Look, I’ll...I’ll. Just wait here.”

He disappeared, bearing Victor away with him. He returned a moment later, alone.

“Where’d you...where’s Victor?”

“I’ve put him near his men. Out of the mud,” he added, hopefully. “And...”

“And what?”

“And he had lung damage, which I...removed.” He said it like a peace offering, and it almost worked.

“Well ain’t that just the bee’s knees,” Dean spat. He pinched the bridge of his nose at Cas’ chastened face. “Alright, sorry. But you and I are going to have a _long talk_ when we get to Sainte-Solange about what exactly is going on here.” He grabbed Cas by the lapels of his coat, pulling him forward a step, and Cas came easily, human rather than iron.

“I don’t know what’s going on here, Dean,” Cas said. “I...some things are above my, um, pay grade...”

“Bullshit.” Still Dean didn’t release him, though he knew it was dangerous. (Just what the danger was, he didn’t know; but he knew it was there, right below the surface.) “You’re angels, you’re supposed to be _merciful_ . But the way I see it, you’ve done nothing but pull me around by my nose since you jailbroke me, while thousands of people _die_ and you do _nothing_. How’s that for mercy?”

“Angels are _supposed_ to be warriors of God, Dean. I’m a soldier, just as you are.”

Dean scoffed.

“I’m not lying,” Cas said fiercely, and though there was no outward change to his appearance, he seemed, for a second, to grow huge and wild. And still he let Dean hold him in place. “I don’t know what’s going on here. It’s not my place to question my superiors, and so I don’t.” His surety wavered, then returned, like a wave. “I have no choice.”

“No _choice?_ Of course you have a choice. You’ve never, what? Never questioned a shitty order?” Cas stared at him, unmoved. “Forget it. You’re just a _hammer_ ,” Dean said, pushing him away. Cas let himself be pushed.

Something strange happened then. They stared at each other for a long time, too long, and the empty trench seemed to shrink down to the size of a pinhead, and to expand past the horizon of thought. Dean was dizzy with it. But he held his ground.

“Can I tell you something,” Cas said at last, quietly, dropping his eyes from Dean’s, “if you promise not to tell another living soul?”

“Alright,” Dean said, wary and curious by turns.

Cas looked at him again, the way a diver looks at a dark pool far below. Then, he dove.

“I’m not a... hammer as you say. I have questions, I have doubts. I don’t know what’s right and what’s wrong anymore, whether you passed or failed, or what the test even is.”

Dean frowned. Whatever he’d been expecting, it wasn’t...whatever this was, with its aftertaste of last rites.

“Alright,” Dean said again, waiting.

Cas swallowed, tight and uncomfortable, and nodded. “You won’t tell.”

“No.”

“Then, I...I am going to try to find out what’s happening, Dean. But you have to trust me.”

_Maybe you just can’t feel..._

“Do you trust me?”

_...the leash._

“Alright,” Dean said, for the final time.

“Alright?” Cas raised an eyebrow.

“Yes. I mean, yes.”

Cas nodded, a short, pointed movement. “Very well.” He stepped forward again, into Dean’s space, and put his hand to Dean’s cheek.

Dean’s eyes widened. “What are you…”

“Fealty.” Cas said. “We’ve sworn an oath to each other.”

The kiss was, in the scheme of things, a brief one. Dean had read about such things between knights and legendary warriors, and he’d experienced a demon’s take on the custom before. It had tasted like brimstone and blood, and filled his head with howling, even as her tongue had done astonishing things in his mouth. It left a trail of tar under his skin.

This, though, had a tinge of heat—desert-mirage, distant storm, flood—that made Dean’s hair stand up. And then it was over; he felt clean and alive. His blood hummed like a shot arrow, and then was quiet.

They stared at each other. Dean had just enough sense to wonder what he looked like as their eyes met. Whatever Cas saw, it seemed to surprise him. Dean watched the way he drew in a breath, and the way he let it out, in a soft burst; the way his eyes were momentarily bright, not with lightning, but with...something else.

Then Cas was an angel again, and whatever he thought was hidden.

“I bet you do that with all the guys,” Dean said, hoping he could pass off his breathlessness as laughter.

“This is the first oath I’ve sworn in almost seven hundred years,” Cas said flatly. He looked away. “I...have work to do. I should go.”

“Wait,” Dean said. “When...when am I gonna see you again?” He cringed as he said it, that maudlin-sweetheart-windowpane cliche. “I mean, you can’t just leave me in the lurch.”

“Pray for me and I’ll come to you.” Cas said. “If I can.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Your leave papers. They’re here.”

He’d only been gone a moment when Dean heard someone calling his name. He walked half-blind in the direction of the sound.

“Captain Shurley has a message for you,” the person said, but Dean just mumbled his thanks and kept walking.

Captain Shurley was, for once, sober when Dean entered his tent.

“This just came for you,” he said, frowning over the papers before handing them to Dean. “Four days leave.” He adjusted his uniform. “I have to say, Dean, I feel like you’re not supposed to be away from the Front...”

“You’re denying my request?”

“No, Lieutenant” Captain Shurley said, sitting down at his typewriter. “Call it superstition. You’re free to go. Take one of the cars.”

“Yes, sir.” But he’d already slipped from the Captain’s attention.

* * *

The trip to Sainte-Solange took half a day—the car got stuck in two places and had to be refueled, and Dean wished for a horse—but finally he arrived. It was a collection of dreary grey stone buildings, huddling together around a squat little church and a surprisingly spacious cobbled square. No one looked from their windows or doors at his approach, and so he had to find the lodging on his own. He scraped through his memory until he recalled the name that Crowley used: _La Faucille Inn._

The inn stood slantingly on the edge of a field, with moss growing along its face. A wooden sign creaked in the breeze, and Dean squinted at its faded paint until he could see the sickle that gave the place its name.

“Cheery,” he muttered, but straightened his overshirt and hat, and knocked on the door.

Nothing happened, so he knocked again.

Again, nothing.

He was just about ready to go throw rocks at the window, when finally the door opened. A dark-haired woman with startled eyes looked out at him.

“Hello,” Dean said, smiling. “I mean, _bonjour_ , I’m Dean Winchester and...”

He stopped, looking over her shoulder, into the dim light of the building, staring at the person who’d just emerged from the shadows.

“I’m Dean Winchester,” he said again, pushing past her, “and that’s my little brother. And I am going to _kick his ass_.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! If you're still reading along, thank you so much for your patience. I'm over the respiratory issues I had all winter.  
> This chapter was a monster to write and, surprise, it made me realize that this will need an extra chapter at the end. How about that.
> 
> Victor's division, [ the 370th](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/370th_Infantry_Regiment_\(United_States\)), was real, and I hope I did them a modicum of justice.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been interested in World War 1 for a long time, because its repercussions are still felt, even if we don't often realize it. 
> 
> The centenary of Armistice Day is in November of this year, and I wanted to do something to commemorate it. _Supernatural_ seemed like a good way to do that.
> 
> I've tried for something approaching 90% historical accuracy, since, in this is still the _Supernatural_ universe (albeit 100 years ago) and things in that universe don't always match up with ours.
> 
> If you're interested in this time period, I highly recommend _The Guns of August_ by Barbara Tuchman, one of my top-ten favorite books.
> 
> With thanks, as always, to aerialiste and BurningTea.


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